Luk 6:1-5 . The ears of corn (Mat 12:1-8 , Mar 2:23-28 ). : Mk. makes no attempt to locate this incident in his history beyond indicating that it happened on Sabbath . Mt. uses a phrase which naturally suggests temporal sequence, but to which in view of what goes before one can attach no definite meaning. Lk. on the other hand would seem to be aiming at very great precision if the adjective qualifying , were genuine. But it is omitted in the important group [58] [59] [60] , and in other good documents, and this fact, combined with the extreme unlikelihood of Lk.’s using a word to which it is now, and must always have been, impossible to attach any definite sense, makes it highly probable that this word is simply a marginal gloss, which found its way, like many others, into the text. How the gloss arose, and what it meant for its author or authors, it is really not worth while trying to conjecture, though such attempts have been made. Vide Tischendorf, N. T., ed. viii., for the critical history of the word. , ate, indicating the purpose of the plucking, with Mt. Mk. omits this, vide notes there. . ., rubbing with their hands; peculiar to Lk., indicating his idea of the fault (or that of the tradition he followed); rubbing was threshing on a small scale, an offence against one of the many minor rules for Sabbath observance. This word occurs here only in N. T., and is not classical.

[58] Codex Sinaiticus (sc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

[59] Codex Vaticanus (sc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[60] Codex Regius–eighth century, represents an ancient text, and is often in agreement with and B.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Luke Chapter 6

Luk 6:1-5

Mat 12:1-8 ; Mar 2:23-28 .

The Evangelist is inspired to introduce these accounts of two Sabbaths here. Very probably also they took place at this point of time. If so, it is because the moral object of the Spirit in Luke coincided here with the historical order. This we may infer from a comparison with the order of Mark, who, as a rule, cleaves to the sequence of events. In Matthew, on the contrary, these facts are reserved for a much later point of his Gospel (Mat 12 ). A vast compass both of discourses and miracles is introduced by him before he speaks of these two Sabbath days. And the reason is manifest. Matthew here, as often, departs from the order of occurrence in order to show the long-continued and ample testimony to the Messiahship of Jesus, before he makes use of these incidents on the Sabbath, which even the Jews themselves felt to slight their sabbatical practice, and threatened the legal covenant. Ezekiel speaks of the Sabbath as a sign between Jehovah and Israel (Eze 20:12 , Eze 20:20 ). And now this was about to vanish away. Hence these actions on the Sabbath day are extremely significant. They occur in Matthew, in the chapter where our Lord announces the unforgivable sin of that generation, as also at the close He disowns His natural ties, and speaks of the formation of a new and spiritual relationship, founded on doing the will of His Father in heaven. Then forthwith, in the next chapter, He shows the kingdom of heaven and its course, which was about to be introduced because of the utter apostasy of Israel and the consequent rupture of that economy.

In Mark and Luke this is not the immediate object. They are given, it would appear, as they occurred, and Mark had to tell. Still, it is evident that their mention here falls in with Luke’s design remarkably. He takes notice, we saw in the last chapter, of the working of Divine grace, which calls not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Nor will the new things of Christ, the Second Man, mix with the old things. Yet man’s preference is undisguised for the old because it suits his habits and self-importance. Grace exalts God, and must be paramount.

In this chapter we are told, “It came to pass” that not on the second Sabbath after the first, but “on the second-first Sabbath”* – a very peculiar phrase, which has perplexed the commentators and critics immensely. It is found in no place or author but here. The only thing which really explains it seems to be a reference to Jewish customs and their feasts.

*(Verse 1) “Second-first Sabbath.” The word (or , as in some copies) is, in my judgment, part of the inspired text, as exhibited in the vast majority of manuscripts, uncial and cursive [ACDEHKM(R)SUVX(L), almost all cursives], as well as the Amiatine of Vulg. and other Latin copies, the Gothic, the later Syriac[hcl], etc., not to speak of ample citation and comment in Greek and Latin fathers. The Sinai and Vatican, with L of Paris, omit the word, as do seven cursives [including 1, 33, 69] and several versions [Syrrsin pesch hier, Memph., Aeth.]. For this we may easily account by the difficulty of the phrase and its absence, not only in the corresponding passages of Matthew and Mark, but everywhere else. All attempt to show how so singular a word could have slipped in and have spread, so generally and soon, is a failure; though it may be fair to state that Schultz conjectures that it arose out of insertions, by some of , by others of , which were in the next stage joined together (B.T.).tid=51#bkm136- It was retained by Tischendorf in his last (eighth) edition, as it is by Blass. See further in Scrivener, ii., p. 347ff. W. H. App., p. 58f, and note 47.

On one of these occasions (Lev 23:10-12 ) the first cut sheaf of corn was waved before God. The disciples were now going through the cornfields. Thus the connection was evident. It was the earliest Sabbath after the first-fruits had been offered. This adds to the striking character of the instruction. The Passover took place immediately before, as we know: the paschal lamb was killed on the fourteenth of Nisan between the evenings. Then followed the great Sabbath immediately, and on the day after, the first sheaf of corn was waved before the Lord. It was the type of Christ’s resurrection. The corn of wheat had fallen into the ground and died, but was now risen again. (Joh 12:24 .) As the killing of the lamb was the type of His death, so was this wave sheaf of His resurrection. From the day on which it was offered, seven weeks were counted complete (of course with their Sabbaths), and then came the next great feast, or that of weeks. The first of these Sabbaths in the seven weeks, counted from the day of the wave sheaf, was not the great paschal Sabbath, but it followed next in succession. The Sabbath that opened the feast of unleavened bread after the Passover was the first, and the following Sabbath day was “the second-first.” It was “second” in relation to that great day, the paschal Sabbath, but “first” of the seven which immediately ensued. Thus it was the first Sabbath day after the wave sheaf; and no “Israelite indeed” could have counted it lawful to have eaten of corn till after Jehovah had received His portion.tid=51#bkm136a-

On that Sabbath, then, the disciples, in passing through the cornfields, “were plucking the ears of corn, and eating [them], rubbing them in their hands.” This was always allowed, and is still, in Eastern countries round the Holy Land – no doubt a remaining trace of the old traditional habit of the Jews. It is allowed as an act of charity to the hungry. What a condition for the followers of the Lord Jesus to be in! What a proof of His shame and of their need!

But nothing moved the Pharisees: religious bitterness steels the natural heart. “But some of the Pharisees said to them,* Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath?”tid=51#bkm137- The Lord answered instead of the disciples, “Have ye not read so much as this, what David did when he hungered, he and those who were with him; how he went into the house of God, and took the showbread, and ate and gave to them also who were with him; which it is not lawful that [any] eat unless the priests alone? “The Spirit of God here takes up only David – not the priests of whom also Matthew treats, which was very suitable. He, writing for Jews, would use a proof of the folly of their objection which was before their eyes every day. But Luke refers to the moral analogy in the history of the great king David, who, after his anointing, and before coming to the throne (which was just the Lord’s position now), was reduced to such excessive straits that the holy bread was made profane for his sake. God, as it were, refused to hold to ritual where the anointed king and his followers were destitute of the barest necessaries of life. For what did it imply? The depth of evil that ruled the nation. How could God sanction holy bread in such a condition? How could He accept of the showbread of the people as the food of His priests, when all the foundations were clearly out of course? Was not this evident in the hunger of His anointed and of His trusty band? Was not the rejected Son of David as free as the rejected David?

*(Verse 2) “To them so AE, etc., 33, 69, Amiat., Syrr. Edd. omit, after BCpmL, etc., Old Lat., Memph., etc.

“To do”: so ACEL, with later uncials, Syrr., Memph.; but Edd. omit, as BDR, 69, and Amiat.

The Lord closes this part of the subject with the declaration that “the Son of man is Lord of the sabbath also.”* Thus there is another reason yet more powerful. David was not the Son of man as Jesus was. The Son of man had, in His own person and position, rights altogether superior to any ritual. He was entitled to abrogate it. He would do so formally in due time; for this attached to His personal glory. “The Son of man is Lord of the sabbath also,” which David was not.

*Codex Bezae Cantab. transposes verse 5 to the end of verse 10. But this licence is small compared with the singular addition which it exhibits in place of that transposed verse 5: – , , , , . On the same day having beheld one working on the sabbath, he said to him: Man, if thou knowest what thou art doing, thou art happy; but if thou knowest not, thou art cursed and a transgressor of the law.” It is surprising that any thoughtful Christian should be rash enough to regard this insertion as authentic; for while the Lord always met the faith of the Gentiles or Samaritans to whom grace gave a deeper perception of His personal glory above law, He does not anticipate, in His dealings in the Gospels, that deliverance of the believer from law which is based on His own death and resurrection as now revealed (B.T.). See, further, note tid=51#bkm138- in Appendix.

Luke 6: 6-11.tid=51#bkm139-

Mat 12:9-14 ; Mar 3:1-6 .

Nor is this all. The Lord Jesus on another Sabbath enters the synagogue and teaches, where “there was a man whose righttid=51#bkm140- hand was withered.” And now the scribes and Pharisees with deadly hatred are watchingtid=51#bkm141- to see “whether he would heal on the sabbath, that they might find something of which to accuse him.” Such was man on one side: on the other there was a Stranger come down from heaven; a Man also, to fallen man, and with a heart to display heaven’s and God’s mind perfectly. But those who prided themselves upon their righteousness and wisdom are afraid lest men should be healed by Him at the expense of their ceremonies, and they seek to fasten an accusation against Him. “But he knew their thoughts,tid=51#bkm142- and said to the man who had the withered hand, Rise up and stand in the midst. And having risen up, he stood [there].” The thing was not done in a corner, but boldly, in presence of them all.

The Lord even challenges them publicly, and says, “I will ask * you if it is lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy [it]? “They were doing evil; it was His to do good. They were seeking to destroy His life; He was willing to save theirs. “And having looked around on them all, he said to him, Stretch out thy hand.” It was enough: the man did so, “and his hand was restored as the other.”|| How simple, and yet how truly Divine! Was this, then, a work done? Was the Son’s healing what God had forbidden? Was this unworthy of God? Was it not, on the contrary, the very expression of what God is? Is not God always doing good? Does He forbear to do good on the Sabbath day? Was not the very Sabbath itself a witness how God loved to do good, and a pledge that He will bring His people into His own rest? Was not Jesus doing so to this sufferer, and giving a witness of the gracious power that will do so fully by and by?

*”I will ask”: so AD, later uncials, most cursives, Syrr., Arm., Aeth.; but Edd. adopt “I ask,” from BL, Amiat., Memph.

“If it is”: so Edd., after BDL, Syrr., Amiat., Memph. A and many cursives, “what is.”

“Sabbath”: so BDL; for “sabbaths” (T.R.).

“Him”: so Edd., following ABE, etc., Syrr. “The man” is found in DL, 1, 33, 69, Amiat., Memph.

||”As the other”: so AD, etc., 1, 69, Syrr. After “restored” some later uncials with 69 insert “whole,” which Edd. reject, after ABDKL, many cursives (1, 33), Old Lat., Vulg., Syrr. Memph. (from Matthew), whilst BL and some cursives (33) leave out also “as the other” (so Edd.).

And what was the effect upon unbelief? “They were filled with madness, and spoke together among themselves what they should do to Jesus”; and this because He had shown that God never foregoes His title to do good even on the Sabbath day in a world that is ruined by man’s sin and Satan’s wiles. A superior power has entered and manifests the defeat of Satan. But, meanwhile, the instruments of Satan are filled, first with his lies, and secondly with his murderous hatred. “They spoke together among themselves what they should do to Jesus.” For indeed they had no, communion with God and with His mind. They were only filled with madness, and communed one with another how to injure the Lord, the manifest children of their father, such did not Abraham.tid=51#bkm143-

Luk 6:12-16 .

Mar 3:13-19 .

The pronounced enmity of the religious leaders led our Lord to special prayer. From man He turns to God. But there was another reason. He was about to call others to take up the work in which He had been engaged, and to carry it out to the ends of the earth. “And it came to pass in those days that he went out into the”‘ mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God.” This special prayer suited both the circumstances of evil on man’s side, and the fresh mission of grace on God’s part. “And when it was day, he called his disciples; and having chosen out twelve from them whom also he named apostles.”tid=51#bkm145- These were to be His chief envoys in the work.tid=51#bkm146-

Luk 6:17-19 .

Mat 4:23-5:1 ; Mar 3:7-12 .

“And having descended with them, he stood on a level place.” This has been often misunderstood, and some have contrasted the discourse in “the plain” here with the discourse on “the mountain” in Mat 5:6 , Mat 5:7 . There is no ground for this. The expression does not really mean a plain, but a plateau or level place on the mountain. It was the same discourse, which Matthew set down, without presenting the special circumstances which led to particular parts of it – questions, etc.; whereas Luke was inspired to give it in detached portions here and there, and generally with the questions or other circumstances which led to each particular part.tid=51#bkm147- The two inspired writers, I doubt not, were governed in this by the special design of the Holy Ghost in each.

It has been irreverently asked whether Luke could thus have written with the Gospel of Matthew before him. The answer is, It would be the highest degree of improbability on mere human principles. Had his Gospel no higher source than a skilful use of existing documents, he could not, in my judgment, have ventured to differ so widely from Matthew, in the disposition of facts and teachings, if he regarded his apostolic predecessor as inspired, and desired to strengthen his testimony, not to perplex souls, nor to furnish objections to men of speculative mind. The course he has pursued is the weightiest conceivable proof of his own direct inspiration, as the fruit of a special design on the part of the Holy Ghost. whether Luke had or had not the Gospel of Matthew in his hands. This I say, accepting fully the identity of the two discourses; for the attempt of the late M. Gaussen and others to establish their difference has long seemed to me a failure, not only in fact but in principle, from reducing the function of the Spirit to that of a reporter instead of an editor, in either case of course unerring.

Here, then, Jesus stood, where a vast multitude might hear Him. “And a crowd* of his disciples and a great multitude of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the sea-coast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases. And those that were beset by unclean spiritstid=51#bkm148- were healed. And all the crowd sought to touch him; for power went out from him and healed all.”

*”Crowd”: so AD and later uncials, most cursives, Old Lat. and Vulg. BL 1, and Syrr. insert “a great.”

Luk 6:20-23 .

Mat 5:3 , Mat 5:4 , Mat 5:6 , Mat 5:11 , Mat 5:12 .

But now we come to what was still better, not for the body nor for this world, but for the soul in relation with God. “And he, lifting up his eyestid=51#bkm149- upon his disciples, said, Blessed [are] ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” There is this remarkable difference in the manner of presenting the discourse on the mount here and in the first Gospel. That in Matthew gives it in the abstract, presenting each blessing to such and such a class. “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Luke makes it a more personal address: “Blessed be ye poor.

The reason is manifest. In the one case it is the prophet greater than Moses, Who lays down the principles of the kingdom of heaven in contrast with all Jewish thought, and feeling, and expectation. In the other case it is the Lord comforting the actually gathered disciples, addressing themselves as so separated to Himself, and not merely legislating, so to speak. It was now the time of sorrow; for as bringing the promises in His person, man would not have Him.

Again, it is always “the kingdom of God” in Luke. “The kingdom of heaven” is more dispensational, and finds its perfect place in Matthew. Luke, as ever, holds to that which is moral. Certainly the poor were little in man’s kingdom. “Blessed,” were they, said the Lord, “for (theirs) is the kingdom of God.”

Further, it may be remarked that there is no such fulness here as in Matthew, where we have the complete sevenfold classes of the kingdom, with the supernumerary blessings pronounced on those persecuted, whether (1) for righteousness’ sake, or (2) for Christ’s sake.

But here we have another difference very notable. There are but four classes of blessing – not seven; but then they are followed by four woes, which in Matthew are reserved to a still greater completeness in Mat 23 , at the end of His ministry, for the same dispensational reason which is adhered to throughout his Gospel. Luke, on the other hand, presents at once, first, the blessings: and immediately after, the woes. It was not the time of ease; judgment was coming. This flows from the moral character of his Gospel, just as we find Moses in Deuteronomy, which has a similar, purpose, telling the people that he sets before them the blessing and at the same time the curse (Deu 28 ).

The first blessing, it will be noticed, is that which man always counts the greatest misery. So the poor in this world look to be despised; but “yours is the kingdom of God.”tid=51#bkm149a- The next blessing is hungering now, with the certainty of being filled. The third is present sorrow – with joy promised (that is, in the morning).tid=51#bkm150- Lastly, “Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate youtid=51#bkm151- [from them], and shall reproach [you], and cast out your name as wicked, for the Son of man’s sake.” Luke, it will be noticed, leaves out entirely persecution for righteousness’ sake, which finds its fitting, though not exclusive, place in Matthew.

“Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy: for behold, your reward is great in the heaven: for after this manner did their fathers act towards the prophets.” This supposes exercised faith, with the greatest resulting blessing. But the fact that Luke confines himself to the blessedness of those persecuted for the Son of man’s sake, beautifully accords with the direct addresses in his four classes. As the blessed here are immediately. before the Lord, so the persecuted here are only for His sake. All is intensely personal.*

*Cf. “Lectures on Matthew,” p. 122.

Luk 6:24-26 .

Then follow the woes. “But woe unto you rich! for ye have received your consolation.” Nothing more dangerous than ease and satisfaction in this world – there is no greater snare even to the disciple. So again: “Woe unto you that are filled!* for ye shall hunger.” This, of course, has its moral bearing. There is leanness for the soul where the heart has all that it desires. “Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.” A still further carrying out of the danger of man’s heart. “Woe when all men shall speak well of you!” Here it is not personal only, but relative satisfaction.tid=51#bkm152- “For after this manner did their fathers to the false prophets.” In all respects it is a complete picture of that which is spirituality desirable or to be dreaded. And thus our Evangelist closes this part of the discourse.

*”Filled”: so AD, etc., Old Lat., etc. Edd. add “now,” following BL and later uncials, 1, 33, 69, Memph.

“Woe unto you”: so A, etc. BKL, etc., 1, 13, 69, have “Woe ye.”

“Woe”: so Edd. with AB and later uncials, 1, 33. – D, 69, Memph. add “to you.”

Luk 6:27-36 .153

Mat 5:39-48 .

There is no such open contrast with the law as in Matthew 5-7. The reason is manifest. Matthew has the Jews full in view, and therefore our Lord contrasts “Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment; but I say unto you,” etc. All that Luke says is, “But I say unto you that hear, I say.” The disciples actually addressed were Jews, but the instruction in its own nature goes out to any man, and is profitable for all the faithful, to the Gentile as much as to the Jew. Notwithstanding it was pre-eminently important for a Jew who had been formed on the principles of earthly righteousness. None the less was it full of instruction for the Gentiles when they should be called to hear. The Gentile believer has the same heart as the Jewish, is in the same world, has to do with enemies and those that hate. Hence the value of such a word, “Unto you that hear I say, Love your enemies, do good to those that hate you, bless those that curse you, pray for those that use you despitefully.” This is entirely contrary to nature; it is the revelation of what God is, applied to govern the heart of His children. “Love your enemies, do good to those that hate you.” It is this that He was doing, and showing in Christ, and the children are called to imitate their Father. “Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children.” (Eph 5:1 .) This is of the deepest importance practically, for Christ is our real key according to that revelation of Him which is given in the New Testament; and this alone enables us to use rightly and intelligently the Old Testament. The Christian who is under grace understands the law far better than the Jew who was under law; at least, he ought to enter into it, as a whole and in all its parts. with a deeper perception of it, than the saints who had to do with its ordinances and ritual. Such is the power of Christ and such the wisdom of God which is our portion in Him.

But, besides these unfoldings of truth, there are the affections that are proper to the Christian. “Bless those that curse you and pray for those that use you despitefully.” The Lord looks for the activity of good, and the looking to God on behalf of those who might treat themselves despitefully. Thus it is not only kindness and pity, but there is the earnest and sincere pleading with God for their blessing.

Verse 29 is remarkable as compared with the corresponding portion (verses 39, 40) of Mat 5 . They both deserve our particular consideration and well illustrate the difference of the Gospels, and, what is also of the greatest importance, the manner of inspiration generally. It is a mistake to think that the Spirit of God is limited to a mere report even of what Jesus said. He exercises sovereign rights, while He gives the truth and nothing but the truth; and inasmuch as His aim is to give the whole truth, He is not tied down to the same expression, even while He is furnishing the substance of all that is needed for God’s glory.*

*Cf. “Exposition of Mark,” p. 10f, and note 6 in Appendix here.

Thus in the Gospel of Matthew the case is of one who sues at law. In that case the object is to take away the coat; and the Lord bids the disciple to let the cloak be taken also. Luke, on the contrary, writes, “him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to thy vest also.” It is not a case of legal suing, but of illegal violence; and the spoiler who would take the outer garment is not to be resisted if he proceeds to take the inner one also. This clearly gives a far greater fullness of truth than if the Spirit of God had restricted Himself to only one or other of the two cases. The apparent discrepancies of the Gospels are therefore their perfection, if indeed we value the entire truth of God. Only thus could the different sides of truth be presented in their integrity. The Jew would require especially to be guarded on the side of law; but there is also violence in the world contrary to law; and it was necessary that the disciples should see it to be their calling and privilege to hold fast their heavenly principles in the face of man’s force, no less than law. To maintain the character of Christ in our practice is of greater consequence than to keep one’s cloak or coat also.

Then the Lord says, “Give to every man that asketh of thee.” It is no question of foolish prodigality, but of an open hand and heart to every call of need. “From him that taketh away what is thine ask it not back.” It is of all consequence that, as there should be the patient endurance of personal wrong – “unto him that smiteth thee on the cheek, offer also the other” – so there should be also the testimony that our life does not consist in the things which we possess. At the same time, He adds for our own guidance towards others, “As ye wish that mentid=51#bkm154- should do to you, do ye also to them in like manner: and if ye love those that love you, what thanktid=51#bkm155- is it to you? for even sinners love those that love them.” To love those who love us is not the point for a Christian; it is a mere human principle – as the Lord emphatically says here, “sinners also love those that love them.” It is not as in Matthew, publicans or Gentiles, but “sinners,” according to the ordinary moral tone of Luke. This was true of man everywhere, and the word “sinner” has a great propriety and emphasis. Not only men, but bad men, may love those who love them. So, too, the doing good to those who do good to us is but a righteous return of which the evil are capable; as indeed lending, when they hope to borrow or to receive. Sinners do quite as much.tid=51#bkm155a- But for us the word is “love your enemies, and do good and lend, hoping for nothing in return*; and your reward shall be great.” Nor is the reward all. “And ye shall be sons of [the] Highest.” How soon it was made their conscious relationship! Thus it becomes the desire and aim – to acquit ourselves according to the relationship grace has given us. “For he is good to the unthankful and wicked.” How truly Divine! We ourselves are the witnesses of it in our unconverted days.

*”Hoping for nothing () in return”: so W. H., etc., after ABLD, Latt., etc. Tischendorf adopted (Revv. marg. “despairing of no man”), following pm. Syrr. (sin.: “do not cease hope of men”). We cannot reason on the use of the word [] elsewhere in the N.T., for this is its only occurrence. What influenced the Revv. is the fact that the word occurs in Polybius in the sense of despairing or giving up in despair . . . But even Liddell and Scott furnish from Diog. L. i. 1-59, an instance of the modification, hoping that a thing will not happen. . . . Verbs compounded with admit of flexibility enough in sense to cover the meaning attached to the word in our old and other versions. The question then mainly turns on the requirement of the context. And when one weighs verses 30-34 with care, it seems surprising that a sense so unnatural here should be attached to the word inverse 35. Especially consider the immediately preceding verse: what can be simpler than the converse call of grace, love, do good, lend, “hoping for nothing again”? (Cf. Luk 14:12 .) What worthy sense in such a connection is there in “never despairing”? Does it mean that, whatever we may give thus unselfishly in faith, we are to have no fears of coming short for ourselves? If so, it seems needless, mean, and out of character with all the rest. Never despair because of giving or lending to others! Even a generous man might be beyond such fears, not to speak of a son of the Highest exhorted by the Only-begotten of the Father. And what here is the force of the margin “despairing of no man”? If the Revv. understand despairing of no man’s honesty or gratitude in repayment, it seems quite contrary to the spirit of verse 30, not to mention that the sequel of verse 35 casts the believer wholly on God’s great recompense [B. T.].tid=51#bkm156-

Hence the call in our Gospel does not follow as in Matthew, “Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” but “Be ye therefore* merciful, even as your Father also is merciful.” The perfection in Matthew seems to be in allusion to the call on Abraham, whose perfection was to walk in integrity, confiding in the shadow of the Almighty. The disciple, instructed of Jesus, had the Father’s Name declared, and his perfection is to illustrate his Father’s character in indiscriminate grace – not in the spirit of law. Writing for the Gentiles, Luke simply calls them to be merciful as their Father was merciful. This would be obvious even to such as had not a minute acquaintance with the Old Testament, and therefore incapable of appreciating the delicate allusions to its contents here or there. Any believer could understand the force of such an exhortation as “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.” The tendency to censoriousness, the imputation of evil motives, and the danger of sure retribution, are here brought before us. “Condemn not, and ye shall in nowise be condemned.”tid=51#bkm156a-

*”Therefore”: so AEPX, etc., Amiat., Syrr. (exc. sin.). Edd. omit after BD L 1, 33, Syrsin Memph.

Luk 6:37-49 .

On the other hand, says our Master, “remit, and it shall be remitted unto you.” It is the spirit of grace in the experience of wrongs. “Give, and it shall be given unto you.” It is the spirit of large generosity; and who ever knew a giver with nothing to give or receive? Yea, “good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over shall be giventid=51#bkm157- into your bosom.” Men are very far from giving thus; and the Lord leaves it entirely vague. It might be by men or by believers: certainly God thus acts. Whoever gives will find his account sure in the far-surpassing goodness of God. “For with the same measure* with which ye mete, it shall be measured to you again” – whatever the means that He employs and whatever the time of recompense.

*”With the same measure”: so AC, later uncials, most cursives, Old Lat. Syrr. BDL, 1, 33, Aeth. Memph. read “with what measure ye mete.”

The first principle that the Lord here lays down is the necessity of a man himself seeing in order to lead others aright. This has been constantly lost sight of in Christendom. It was not in the same way necessary to priesthood in Israel, though there were duties of a priest which needed discernment, to judge between clean and unclean. Still, their function lay in mere outward things, which required no spiritual power. But it is not so in Christianity, though there are moral principles – first principles of everyday life – which are unchangeable. Yet as a whole, Christianity does suppose a new nature and the Spirit of God; and he who has not that nature and the power of the Spirit is incapable of rightly helping others. Now, ministry demands this, even in the Gospel. There are varying states; and unless a man is capacitated by his own personal faith as well as by the Word of God, he will misapply Scripture. But it is still clearer in the instruction and guidance practically of believers. He who is called to help them on must necessarily be taught of God, not in mind only but in heart and conscience, well and thoroughly furnished in Scripture, so as rightly to divide the Word of truth. The blind, therefore, cannot lead the blind. Neither is it Christianity that the seeing should lead the blind. The true principle of our calling is, that the seeing should lead the seeing – the very reverse of the blind leading the blind.

Although every believer is supposed to see, yet he may not see clearly. He has the capacity, but may not yet have been exercised in using it. But when the truth has been brought clearly out, he is able to see it without more ado, and, it may be, as distinctly as he who had taught it. Thus that which he receives (whatever the means employed) stands on the Word of God and not on the authority either of Church or of teacher. If the teacher is removed or goes astray, still he sees the truth for himself in the light of God.

Thus it remains true that the seeing, whom God has qualified to lead others, teach the seeing who have light enough from God to follow, and who know that they are not following man but God, in that they intelligently follow those who are taught of God, and who lead them according to His word, that which commends itself by the Holy Spirit to the conscience. So far is ministry therefore from being incompatible with Christianity, that it is characteristic of it. Strictly speaking, it was not a distinctive feature of Judaism. They had priests to transact their religious business for them; but Christians have ministry in order to guide and cheer them on, and strengthen them by God’s grace, in doing that which pertains to the whole body of which ministers are but a part. “Can a blind [man] lead a blind [man]? Shall not both fall into [the] ditch?”tid=51#bkm158- This is precisely what Christendom, by confounding Christianity with Judaism, is falling into rapidly. Some take the side of infidelity, some of superstition. But they both fall into the ditch, on the one side or the other.

On the other hand, “the disciple is not above his teacher.” Our portion is according to Christ. Christ was despised, and so are we. Christ was persecuted, and so must the disciple be content to be. He has Christ’s portion: if above, so upon earth. “Every one that is perfected shall be as his teacher.”tid=51#bkm158a-

Then there is another danger, and that is of censoriousness. The habit of always seeing faults in others is exceedingly to be deprecated and watched against. “And why lookest thou on the mote that is in thy brother’s eye?” What is the true root of it? Invariably, where there is the habit of beholding faults in others, there is an overlooking of our own. “Why lookest thou on the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” In that state of things we cannot help others: we must have our own evil dealt with first. “For how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, allow [me], I will cast out the mote that is in thine eye” (love would meet another’s want: self is blind and busy, forgets its own faults, but can be zealous in correcting others for its own glory) – “thyself not seeing the beam that is in thine eye?” Our own fault, unjudged, always obstructs our affording real aid to another. Whereas, where we have judged ourselves, it is not only that we can see more clearly, but we can enter upon the work more humbly and lovingly. It is this that makes a man spiritual. Nothing but self-judgment can ever do it ‘ coupled with the sense of the Lord’s great grace and holiness, which is the crown of self-judgment, by the Spirit’s power. But it is only the sense of the Saviour’s grace and regard for His holiness, which produces self-judgment; as, on the other hand, the exercise of self-judgment increases our sense of that grace, and keeps us bright in it, instead of letting ourselves be lowered to the level of surrounding circumstances, and the state to which the allowance of flesh would ever reduce us. The Lord speaks very severely of such – “Hypocrite!” and I believe censoriousness as a rule does tend directly to hypocrisy. It leads persons to assume a spirituality which they do not possess; and is this truthful? A person who is continually commenting on others you may set down as more or less hypocritical in pretending to a holiness which is certainly beyond his measure. Such is the Lord’s judgment; and you may he sure that the word which He has spoken will so decide at the last day. People forget that there is no way of pretending to spirituality more cheap and more imposing on thoughtless minds than this readiness to speak of the faults of others; but there is scarcely anything that the Lord Jesus more sternly refutes and condemns. “Hypocrite! cast out first the beam out of thine eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.”

Then He shows how clearly it is a question of nature. “For there is no good tree which produceth corrupt fruit, nor* a corrupt tree which produceth good fruit.” (Cf. Mat 7:17-20 .) You cannot change the nature. “Every tree is known by its own fruit; for figs are not gathered from thorns, nor grapes vintaged from a bramble.” The Lord did not as yet show the action of two natures, and the way in which the fruits of the new creation might be hindered by the allowance of the old. He simply points out the fact that there are two natures, but not their co-existence in the same person, which is the matter of fact even in the real believer. “Every tree is known by its own fruit.” This is peculiar to Luke – I mean the putting it in so strong a manner. Matthew says, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Luke makes it more comprehensive and emphatic. “Every tree is known by its own fruit.” “The good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good; and the wicked [man] out of the wicked bringeth forth that which is wicked: for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.” This is another addition of Luke’s in this place. Our words are very weighty in the sight of God, as Matthew reveals in chapter 12 of his Gospel, quite in a different connection: “By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” He had in view particularly the great dispensational change when the Jews should be cut off, not only for speaking against the Son of man, but for blaspheming against the Holy Ghost – the sin that cannot be forgiven, into which also the Jews fell. They rejected, not only the humbled Lord Jesus, the Son of man, but they refused the Holy Ghost’s testimony to Him when He was glorified. They rejected every evidence that God gave them, and all advance in the ways of God was utterly loathsome to them. The consequence was that they broke out in violent rejection, according to their own evil, of God’s good things. “Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.”tid=51#bkm158b- Their mouth spoke, and they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment, even as men generally shall. of every idle word they shall give account. The Jews have thus lost their place for the time, and God has brought in a new thing.

*Edd. after “nor” add “again,” following B 1, 69, Memph. – ACD Syrr. Goth. Aeth. omit.

“Treasure of his heart”: so AC and later uncials, most cursives (33), Syrr. Aeth. Memph. Goth. Edd. omit after BDL, 1, 69, Amiat.

But Luke presents the matter far more as a moral principle. It is true of every man, that out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh: and this is an important test for the state of our souls. Our lips betray the condition of our heart – of our affections. Then there is another thing. If we own Christ to be Lord in word, how come we not to do what He says? The very saying that He is Lord implies the obligation of subjection to Him.” – Why call ye me, Lord, Lord; and do not the things that I say? Every one that cometh to me, and heareth my words, and doeth them, I will show you to whom he is like. He is like a man building a house, who dug and went deep, and laid a foundation on a rock.” (Cf. Mat 7:24-27 .) Nothing could shake that house. “But a great rain coming, the stream broke upon that house.” But in vain: when the flood arose, it could not be shaken; “for it had been founded on the rock.”* The heeding the words of Christ is that which survives every shock of the adversary. He who proves his faith thus in his obedience shall never be moved nor ashamed. “And he that has heard and not done,” which is precisely what has characterised Christendom and Judaism then and since – “is like a man who hath built a house on the ground, without a foundation, on which the stream broke, and immediately it fell; and the breach of that house was great.” So it shall be. The heaviest blow of the Lord returning in glory will fall, not upon pagans who have never heard, but upon the baptized who have heard and not obeyed the Gospel.

*”For it had been founded on the rock” so ACDX, etc., most cursives, Syrrpesch, hcl Old Lat. Goth. Arm. Edd. adopt “on account of its having been well built,” after BL, 33, Memph. (from Matt.).

Moralising for others, or bare unfruitful hearing even of Christ’s words, is but adding to one’s own condemnation. Nothing can be substituted for real obedience of heart. Christ was the obedient as well as the dependent Man, the bright moral contrast of the first man; and such must be and are those who are His. In all respects the discourse supposes and insists on a reproduction of His character in His disciples. It is not only promise come and fulfilled in Christ, but the manifestation of God in Him, and this, now forming the disciples who are thus morally and actually distinguished from the nation.tid=51#bkm159-

NOTES ON THE SIXTH CHAPTER.

136 Luk 6:1 . – The operation referred to at the end of the textual note goes by the name of “dittography.” It is Meyer’s explanation, and cf. Field ad loc. Salmon characterizes such explanations as “complicated and lame.” Neander, Winer, De Wette, and Hahn uphold the common reading.

136a Delitzsch: “In the interpretation of this I agree with John Lightfoot, understanding the first Sabbath after the second Easter day, the second Sabbath after the day of offering the barley sheaf (Lev 23:15 ), the second Sabbath with sephirah ha’omer (computation of the omer).” That is (cf. Lev 23:4 ), the omer offering on the morrow after the first great Sabbath (second day of unleavened bread). “It seems, therefore, to have taken place a week after Passover” (Briggs. p. 14). Wellhausen has recently written, “It does not rest merely on a blunder.”

137 Luk 6:2 . – “Not lawful on the Sabbath.” See Mishna, “Sabbath,” vii. 2, and Bennett’s whole chapter v. We learn from this passage how the Lord put an end to the whole taboo of the Sabbath, as, in Mar 7:19 , He did to that of meats.

138 Luk 6:5 . – The added words in “D” are shown in transcript opposite to p. 32 of Paterson Smyth’s “How we Got our Bible.” James and Paul both use the words, “transgressor of the law” ( ). Only Blass among Edd. (see his “Philology of the Gospels,” pp. 153-155) has ventured to print the insertion in text, as 5a between verses 10 and 11.

139 Luk 6:6-11 . – Neander observes that “the accounts of this event in Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written independently of each other” (“Life of Christ,” p. 275).

140 Luk 6:6 . – “Right hand.” Dr. Belcher (“Our Lord’s Ministry of Healing,” p. 123) notes this as mark of a physician’s exactitude. For some “advanced” writers it has only the value of an accretion in the manner of tradition. But see Harnack.

141 Luk 6:7 . – Observe the use of , as to which see note on 17: 20.

142 Luk 6:8 . – Another link with the fourth Gospel.

143 Luk 6:11 . – “Scientific” critics find a discrepancy in the fact that Mar 3:5 exhibits JESUS as angry with the Pharisees. The psychology of such writers is very much at fault.

For the independence of the Synoptists of each other in verses 6-11, see C. E. Stuart, p. 68 f.

144 Luk 6:12 . – As to the definite article before “mountain,” see note 39 on Mark (3: 13). It is not a particular mountain, as Wetstein and others have supposed. Wellhausen recognizes the principle, illustrated by some modern languages, in his “Introduction,” p. 26. As to prayer, see note 28, and cf. Rom 12:12 .

145 Luk 6:15 . – In “Zealot” we have substitution of a Greek for a Hebrew name. Mat 10:4 has “Cananaean.” The Zealots were the most extreme and violent of the Pharisees (Joseph. “Antiqq.,” xviii. 1, 6). The Jewish historian states that they originated in Galilee (cf. note 121).

146 Luk 6:16 . – “Judas,” so Joh 14:22 . The same, it is supposed, as Matthew’s “Thaddeus,” “was the”; American Revv. rightly “became a” (or, “proved,” ).

147 Luk 6:17 ff. – The corresponding passages in Matthew (5-7, 107 verses) of the so-called Sermon on the Mount should be compared throughout with those of Luke (30 verses only in this chapter) in the following order:

Luk 6:20-23 with Mat 5:3-12 ; Luk 14:34 f. with Mat 5:13 ; Luk 8:16 and Luk 11:33 (critics’ “doublet”) with Mat 5:15 ; Luk 16:17 with Mat 5:18 ; Luk 12:58 f. with Mat 5:25 ; Mat 16:18 with Mat 5:32 ; Luk 6:27 with Mat 5:44 ; Luk 11:1-4 with Mat 6:9-13 ; Luk 11:34-36 with Matt. vi. 22 f.; Luk 16:13 with Mat 6:24 ; Luk 12:22-31 with Mat 6:25-33 ; Luk 12:34 with Mat 6:21 ; Luk 6:37 , Luk 6:38 , Luk 6:41 f. with Mat 7:1-5 ; Luk 11:9-13 with Mat 7:7-11 ; Luk 13:24 with Mat 7:13 ; Luk 6:43 f. with Mat 7:16 , Mat 7:20 ; Luk 6:45 with Mat 5:37 ; Luk 6:46 with Mat 7:21 ; and Luk 6:47-49 with Mat 7:24-27 .

In aid of detailed comparison of the two records, reference may be made to Salmon, pp. 109-145.

This most notable of the Synoptic discourses raises the question of the relation of Morality to Religion, and of this to Theology. Each of these, accordingly, will be discussed in the sub-sections immediately following.

A. RELIGION in general has already been briefly considered in note 9 on John. As distinct from Theology, which is the study of Religion, the one is “subjective” or personal, the other is “objective.” Unhappily, the two are often confounded.

For the source and nucleus of Religion as conceived by the late Herbert Spencer, see his “Principles of Sociology,” vol. iii., p. 6, “The Religious Idea,” 584: “Belief in a being of the kind we call supernatural – a spirit.” This he describes as “The essential element of a cult.”

Auguste Comte has divided the history of Religion into three stages: 1. Supernatural. 2. Metaphysical. 3. Positive (his own system, the “Religion of Humanity”: cf. note 450).

“One of the strongest implications of the doctrine of Evolution,” writes Fiske, “is the Everlasting Reality of Religion” (“Through Nature to God,” p. 111). Cf. Max Mller, “Origin and Growth of Religion,” Lect. ii. Spencer (op. cit., vol. i. 146) and Tylor (“Primitive Culture,” p. 428) alike discredit the entire deficiency of any tribe of mankind in religious ideas. At the root of Religion lies Faith (see note on 18: 8), with both emotional (the dominant) and intellectual elements, crude forms of which pass under the name of “Superstition.” The form of religion at the same time highest and deepest is called “Mysticism” (see “Psychology of Religion,” pp. 154-173, 244 f.), one expression of the Christian form of which is found in Paul’s words, a “life hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3 : cf. Gal 2:20 ). This has nothing to do with the “Mysteries” or worship of pagan deities of the Earth or Sea, as to which see Sir W. Ramsay’s article in “Encyclopaedia Britannica,” or Sir R. Anderson’s “The Bible or the Church,” ch. 8 and the late Archdeacon Cheetham’s Hulsean Lectures on “The Christian Mysteries.”

A recent masterly book on Christian Mysticism is that of Dr. Rufus Jones, the American Quaker scholar. A man’s religion, as the word is used by Christians, is that which expresses, from his own point of view, his relations to a supernatural Being. All the leading religions, beginning with Judaism (see Abrahams, ch. vi.), have produced mystics, whose tone of mind in the Christian element is described as “spiritual.”

“Control of the individual,” writes Grubb, “by a knowledge larger than his own, is what we call authority,” and “Every one who can see farther than others into the truth of things speaks with some authority” (“Authority and the Light Within,” p. 11 f.).

The “Seat of Authority” in Christianity is variously determined by different “schools”: those of the Catholic type find it in the Church; Unitarians, in the individual Conscience; whilst those roughly described as “Evangelical” refer everything to Scripture. The last-named position, of course that of the present volume, is well represented by Sir R. Anderson’s above-named book, the writer of which insists on the difference between “The Christian Religion” and “Christianity” (“The Bible or the Church,” p. 94 f.). It is, of course, true that Christianity is not strictly a “religion” in the sense in which this word was used by Archbishop Laud.

Where any religion has borrowed from another, there is said to be “Syncretism” (mixture). Fairbairn has observed, “The last religion one could describe [Gunkel does] as syncretism is the Christian” . . . “its founders too ignorant,” he adds, “of other religions . . . it was a living organism” (“Philosophy of the Christian Religion,” p. 518 f.).

Religion as represented by large communities of men or nations had always to the time of Christ been mixed up with Politics, by which, as in Mohammedanism, it is still much affected. Thus the seventeenth century philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, regarded Religion only as a department of the State. The English “Free Church Council,” representing six denominations, in 1909 emphasized “the claim of political activity upon the Nonconformist conscience”: this “militant” attitude doubtless, however unhappily, does but express the logical outcome of the Puritan policy in the seventeenth century. But what a far cry from our generation to that of Cromwell, to say nothing of Calvin, or Savonarola, referred to at the Swansea Conference by S. Horne! We “live and learn.”

The fundamental ideas and practices (in particular, worship) of Religion, in its highest element, as commonly understood, start from recognition of the claim of some Higher invisible Power on man in this life, which is therefore regulated by the principles of his religion in view of rendering account after death. And so Hobbes found the natural cause of Religious anxiety about the future (Routledge’s edition of Leviathan, 1904, p. 68). For the Jew, such principles are found in the scriptures of the Old Testament; for the Christian, in the whole Bible; whilst the faith and conduct of the Moslem are referable to the Koran, and so on. Hence, throughout the various forms of Religion – the monotheistic in particular (witness Mohammed’s reiterated confession of need of forgiveness of his sins) – runs the idea of SIN (in conflict with “Holiness”), its consequences and remedies, which will be dealt with in note on Luk 24:47 below. “Ethical Religion” – to which Buddhism is akin – affects to dispense with this idea altogether (sub-section B).

Comte’s “metaphysical” religion is simply Theology (sub-section C); whilst his “positive” state is doubtless the precursor of the worship of the Apocalyptic “Beast.” At present it is but a sublimated form of Herbert Spencer’s genesis of Religion, i.e., the apotheosis of deceased heroes, such as Romulus among the ancient Romans. According to this, Jehovah (Yahveh) should have been no more than Emerson’s “superman” (plagiarized by Nietzsche).

“Theosophy” is a jumble, registering the occult ideas of the world in general. In this country it is chiefly advocated by women; many of its Society’s publications are written by them. Thus amongst books “recommended for beginners” are Elements of Theosophy, by Lilian Edger; First Steps in Theosophy, by Ethel M. Mallet; and The Path of Discipleship, by Annie Besant, the most prolific writer of all. The system is Eastern in the main.

“Religion,” strange as it may seem, is still “the special sphere of Satan’s influence” (“The Bible or the Church,” p. 162 f.).

Hffding is a standard writer on the “Philosophy of Religion,” as T. H. Green and Dr. John Caird in this country, with whose works rank that of Max Mller, “Introduction to the Science of Religion.” None of these writers, however, able as they were, can be said to have gone to the heart of the matter, which the last-named reached only in his closing days. Liddon’s “Elements of Religion” introduces its reader to a more Biblical element, as does Fairbairn’s valuable work. An article by McPheeters, in Hastings’ “Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels,” deals with authority in Religion. On the distinctly so-called “liberal” side there is “Religions of Authority and the Religion of the Spirit,” by Auguste Sabatier.

The study of Comparative Religion has been usefully served by the series of “Sacred Books of the East,” edited by Max Mller, with which intending Christian Missionaries in that part of the field do well to make themselves familiar. Reinach’s recent book entitled “Orpheus” affords a handy rpertoire of information, which has been followed by Gilmore’s article in Schaff-Herzog, vol. iii. CHRISTIANITY, of course, is for its adherents the absolute and final religion (Joh 14:6 ), which alone brings humanity to “the City of God” (MacCulloch, “Comparative Theology,” p. 2). Its most formidable rival at present is Islam.

B. MORALITY, from being largely concerned with men’s relations to one another (“Righteousness”), is by those who disclaim adherence to any form of supernatural Religion regarded as covering and meeting the whole of their higher needs. For writers such as Leslie Stephen its very genesis is “simply from the felt need of human beings living in society” (“Science of Ethics,” p. 107). Nevertheless, as far back as History goes, Morality (Conscience) is, in fact, found connected with Religion (God consciousness) as its parent (cf. Anderson, “The Bible or the Church,” p. 16); and amongst the old Greeks, Morality was first detached from religion by Aristotle, in the fourth century B.C.. whose “Nichomachean Ethics” remain unsurpassed as a system of purely mundane DUTY, the performance of which is now being substituted for recognition of GOD. Such it was with Emerson, the American sage (“superman”). Cf. the “Ethical Hymn Book,” No. 327, which makes use of the canticle in the second part of Psa 19 , but substituting “Duty” for “Jehovah.”

In the East, Confucianism is regarded as merely Chinese State morality. And so with the religion, such as it is, called “Shinto.” of the Japanese. Both these nations of the yellow race, however, acknowledge a future state of existence, in connection with which reverence (worship) of ancestors is cultivated, as expedient for the present life at least. In Japan, writes Baron Kikuchi, they “talk very little of rights,” Duty being paramount. Buddhism is purely ethical, on the lines of morality expounded in the West by writers like David Hume, who distinguished the various types of national morality (not ignored by Christians).

For the Jews, Religion and Old Testament morality remain intertwined. Abrahams says: “Pentecost celebrates . . . the inseparable conjunction of the service of God with the service of man” (p. 55).

Christians for the most part are guided by the Decalogue, the Sermon on the Mount and Apostolic precepts developing it, which together constitute their Code of righteousness: this teaches beyond all question (Act 10:35 ) that righteousness is what Stanton Coit describes as “the holiest reality” (“Ethical Lecture on the Ten Commandments,” p. 6).

The morality of Moslems is derivable from their sacred book.

Outside the Bible, writers in countries of Christian civilization who have surrendered their allegiance to Gen 3 , trace the origin of Morality to parental affection. Thus Fiske: “The relation between mother and child must have furnished the first occasion for the sustained and regular development of the altruistic feelings” (op. cit. pp. 121, 133 ff.). Cf. Hume’s judgment of Society, expressed as “self-judgment” (Fairbairn, p. 66). By such writers treating sense of Duty as a social feeling implanted in the breast, “The Mosaic Record of the Fall” and of the acquirement of Conscience is deemed an allegory and nothing more, so that Morality is for them, from first to last, a human creation, in no wise proceeding from Revelation. The present writer has heard a lecturer of a London Ethical Society attempt to dispose of the doctrine of original Sin so-called by reference to a child’s treatment of its doll; no distinction being made between the sexes; no allowance for the working of anticipated maternal instinct in a girl; and the derivation of the name of the fetish from “idol” ignored, if indeed apprehended.

The Biblical idea of Sacrifice, that of the individual for the race – so well understood by the Christian soldier, C. J. Gordon – is purloined by the votaries of “Ethical Religion.”

Bishop Butler wrote: “Duties arise out of relations” (“Analogy,” part ii., book ii., 2). Secular Ethics, on the other hand, as expounded by such as Tolstoi, “makes Duty flow from man’s moral power” (supposing that man is able to do his duty if he will) (W. Kelly, “Exposition of the Epistles of John,” p. 190). Butler was followed by Kant, who, at the close of his “Critique of Practical Reason,” declared himself impressed by (1) the heavens above, (2) the moral law – the moral faculty or conscience within. By writing that work he signified his sense of the insufficiency of his previous classical treatise on Pure Reason. For his bringing the religious element back into the calculation, Kant has been denounced by the nineteenth century Nietzsche as an “idiot”; that is, by the man who could write that “God is dead,” and yet became himself in his last days definitely insane: this should afford reflection for Agnostics enamoured with his “Zarathustra.” Harnack brings man back to saner sentiment: he has described virtuous Agnostics as “parasites, living on the faith of others.”

Socialists have attempted to enlist the “Sermon on the Mount” in the service of their nostrums. But, to speak only of Property: Christ’s words as to sacrifice suppose individual ownership. “Christian Socialism” was a plank in Bishop Westcott’s platform: in his “Social Aspects of Christianity” he speaks of the saving, not only of men, but of the world (p. 86). Again, the Bishop of Truro (Dr. Stubbs), in his “Vox Clamantium,” would make the object of the Church the reorganization of society (p. 355). For healthier teaching, see D. M. Panton, “Socialism and the Sermon on the Mount.”

Notable are words of George Washington in his last presidential address: “National morality cannot prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” Of the so-called “Ethical Religion” imported into England from America (its prophet was Emerson), Prof. Foster, of Chicago, redeeming some earlier utterances, has written: “What does it mean that a society of religionless men are to be the Religion of the Future? On the basis of history it is a fact that moral ideas have always found access and evinced their power in the life of peoples only in connection with the corresponding religious ideas” (The American Journal of Theology, April, 1908, pp. 118, 122). Again, Prof. Michael Sadler, in his paper contributed to the Proceedings of the International Congress on Moral Education (1908), has expressed his settled conviction that “there are certain parts of moral education necessary to the good life which are inseparable from one or other form of religious belief.” The recent controversy, however, in connection with a Parliamentary Education Bill, lay rather between advocates of moral training of the “Positivist” type and representatives of Theology, of what is called “definite” religious instruction: this comes in for consideration next.

The case from that point of view has been ably presented by Ernest R. Hull, S.J., in his pamphlet, “Why Should I be Moral?” Upon Synoptic teaching as to Righteousness, see Stalker, “The Ethic of Jesus,” chapter iv.

C. THEOLOGY (cf. Kattenbusch, in the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia, vol. xi:, pp. 394-397), concerned with systematic, logical development of TRUTH (see Fairbairn, p. 263), as a process collects and formulates religious ideas; in the form of “Biblical” Theology doing this for Revelation in the light of the periods during which that was vouchsafed; in the form of “Symbolic” Theology treating of the fundamentals of the Faith as these were investigated in the age of the first Church Councils, which issued “Catholic Creeds” (cf. note on Luk 18:8 ); whilst “Dogmatic” Theology has to do with the development of such doctrine in the light of spiritual experience; and so on.

By a “Theologian” in the narrower and strict sense of the term is meant one who is scientifically, as distinct from ecclesiastically, “dogmatic.” Origen led the way among Christians; with him may be classed Maimonides amongst Jews. Origen has been followed by Athanasius, the Cappadocian “Fathers” (Basil and the brothers Gregory) and Augustine; by Calvin, Hooker, Jonathan Edwards, Newman, Martineau, Dorner, Dale, etc.

By “dogma” in the ecclesiastical sense is meant a truth to which submission is due (Kaftan, Gore, etc.); or, as expressed by Orr, “doctrine ecclesiastically sanctified.” Harnack, its great living historian, calls it Doctrine which is held by the CHURCH as such. Those who conform to what is current in their own generation are by their contemporaries deemed “Orthodox.” Hffding has observed that “within the Protestant Churches it is the laity, far more than any Church authorities, who control the orthodoxy of the preachers” (p. 320). They go by what they were taught in their youth and resist “innovation.” There is, unhappily, an indisposition to view Truth like “a growing tree” (J. N. Darby).

When this takes the form of attempting to supersede the Revelation of the New Testament (2Jn 1:9 ), faithful Christians refuse “Development.” But that any have been entirely free from this tendency, as allied to the dictates of experimental expediency, Newman was right in denying. Very many non-Catholics could agree with him in regarding Infant Baptism, in whatever form it has presented itself, as a product of Development. This aspect of Truth is connected with that which has given rise of late to “Pragmatism,” an apostle of which was the late Prof. William James in America. The Pragmatic method he speaks of as the “interpretation of a notion by the light of its supposed practical consequences” (“Lectures,” p. 45). “Truth in our ideas means their power to work” (ibid., p. 58). Thus the propounder of a theory as to the of the first Corinthian Epistle, in a conversation related by him to the present writer, with the late Professor Tholuck, to whom it was personally explained, was told by that distinguished man that he was of the same opinion, but that he doubted if it would work; to which J. N. Darby rejoined: “Have you ever tried it?” Of course, difference will exist in each case as to the measure of success obtained. For an attack by Nietzsche on those who have “theological blood in their veins,” see his “Antichrist,” 9.

148 Luk 6:18 . – The distinction again appears here between disease and demoniacal possession, which modern inquirers are loath to admit. Carpenter, because of “the vast accumulation of evidence from the ages both before and after Christ” (cf. the works of E. B. Tylor, and, in particular, art. Demonology in “Encyclopaedia Britannica”), says that “the hypothesis of a peculiar outburst of demoniac energy in the time of Jesus falls in complete collapse.” One has, however, only to read such books as Mrs. Howard Taylor’s Memoir of “Pastor Hsi” to learn how prevalent it is in our own day in certain quarters. On this topic, cf. Orr, “The Bible under Trial,” pp. 222-224.

149 – Luk 6:20 . – “Lifted up His eyes.” This, B. Weiss observes, is an expression characteristic of the source that he has named “L” (note 4 f.), rather than of “Q” (“Sources of Synoptic Tradition,” p. 256).

As to glib acceptance of the teaching here, Maclaren remarks: “The people who say, ‘Give me the Sermon on the Mount – I don’t care for your doctrines, but I can understand it,’ have not felt the grip of these Beatitudes” (“Expositions,” etc., vol. i., p. 128).

149a “Poor,” without qualification, cf. 2Co 6:10 , Jas 2:5 . For the personal element in this Gospel, cf. Luk 22:20 , and see note on verse 22 below. Some (as Schmiedel, art. Gospels, in “Encyclop. Bibl.,” 123; cf. his “Jesus in Modern Criticism,” p. 70 ff.) have suggested Luke made use of an Ebionite source here, and for verse 35 f., Luk 11:41 , Luk 12:33 , Luk 14:21 f. and 33, Luk 18:22 , Luk 19:8 . This idea is discredited even by Jlicher (Introduction, 27, p. 206, E. T.). ‘The Ebionites’ system would be far too unpalatable to an Evangelist for him to resort to their literature. It should be observed that according to 7: 1, the Lord is addressing a miscellaneous audience. The Apostles themselves, as Salmon says, were not chosen from the very poor, but belong at least to the “lower middle class” (p. 116; cf. Ramsay, Expositor, April, 1909, p. 306). One must not exaggerate this aspect. The thought in this as in Matthew’s Gospel is based on Old Testament passages, such as Psa 32:2 , Prov. 9: 23, Isa 57:15 (“an established Old Testament principle,” Schlottmann, Compendium, 148), with which Gentile readers could familiarize themselves from the LXX. Nevertheless, it is true that the soil in which Christianity at first was sown was characteristically that of poverty, in Greece as well as in Judea: see Deissmann, in Expositor, February, March, 1909.

Again, an attempt has been made to connect the teaching here with the system of the Essenes (alien to Buddhism), as to whom see Lightfoot on “Colossians,” pp. 158-179, Edersheim, “Sketches, etc.,” chapter 15, and Harnack, “Missions,” i. 337). Eusebius (iii. 27) seems to have referred the name of this sect to the poverty of their intellect in observing sabbaths and other Jewish rites.

By “rich” must probably be understood the Pharisees: see Luk 16:14 . The opinion of some (as Harnack), founded on Luk 6:24 , Luk 16:19 , Luk 18:24 f., that Luke had a bias against the wealthy, is negatived by cognate passages in Matthew (as Mat 19:21 ) and Mark (as Mar 10:23 ). With just as much reason might it be said that Mark had a bias in the contrary direction, because of Mar 14:7 .

150 Luk 6:21 . – Our Lord was for Nietzsche the great type of aristocratic morality, a joyful rather than a suffering Christ!

151 Luk 6:22 f. – “Separate,” usually taken as from the synagogue (Joh 16:2 ) but De Wette took it, like the English translation, as from their society in general.

“Cast out” spread abroad, i.e., bring you into bad repute (Wellhausen).

Son of Man: Matthew’s parallel has “my” (verse 11): cf. note on Luk 12:8 below.

“Rejoice”:as did the excellent John Chrysostom who, when dying, said, “Thanks be to God for all” the persecution he suffered (cf. 1Th 5:16-18 ).

152 Luk 6:26 . – Wesley in his Note asks, “But who will believe this?”

153 Luk 6:27-36 . – For Ritschl, GOD is LOVE, and nothing else, cf. Pfleiderer, “The Development of Theology,” E. T., p. 186. As to Montefiore’s strictures on our Lord’s invective against the Pharisees, see note on Luk 7:40 .

154 Luk 6:31 . – Cf., of course, Matthew’s form of words (Mat 7:12 ), and also, Tobit, iv. 15. This golden rule was called by Hillel “the quintessence of the Law” (Pirg Aboth); but he stated it negatively (Murray, “Christian Ethics,” p. 66 f.), as did also the Chinese sage Kung-fu-ts (Legge, “The Religions of China,” pp. 137-139).

155 Luk 6:32 . – “Thank,” or “grace” (): Vulg. “gratia.” Matthew (Mat 5:46 ) has “reward,” for which in verse 24 Luke has “consolation.”

155a Luk 6:33 . – Such also was a maxim of Lao-tse, contemporary of Confucius (cf. note 154).

156 Luk 6:35 ff. – “Hoping for nothing in return”: so Vulgate (followed in A.V.). Erasmus, Beza, Grotius, Wetstein, Godet and Meyer take as “despair,” after Old Lat. (cf. LXX. of Isa 29:19 ); the Revv., in the sense of lack of faith in God’s own recompense (Humphry). Field, however, supports A.V. with the remark, “The context is too strong for philological quibbles.”

“Ye shall be (prove) sons.” Cf. Ecclesiasticus iv. 10. It is a question of character, as in Rom 8:14 .

Plato regarded the object of the life of man as becoming like God.

156a The closing words of this section (cf. Mat 6:14 f.) bear on the question of communion between God and any who have entered into the relationship of children upon initial Repentance and Faith.

With verse 36, cf. Psa 111:4 , Psa 112:4 .

157 Luk 6:38 . – “Shall be given.” Strictly, “They shall give.” As in the Aramaic of Daniel, the passive is avoided, so that the agent has not to be expressed. Cf. verse 44 and Luk 12:20 , Luk 14:35 , Luk 18:23 , Luk 23:31 .

“With the same measure”: see Deu 25:15 , and cf. Zec 5:8 f. “The very instrument which the woman used for her unholy work was to be the means of her confusion” (C. H. H. Wright ad loc.). The same sentiment is in the Mishna (“Sotah,” i. 7: cf. Bennett, p. 116).

158 Luk 6:39 . – As to blind leaders, cf. Mat 15:14 . It alludes to shepherds’ custom, when angry with their flock, of giving them a blind sheep as a leader. And so of bad administrators of a town (Neubauer, in “Studia Biblica,” vol. l., p. 52, note). These words have a bearing on the subject of Interpretation of Scripture. As to which see note 13 above.

158a Luk 6:40 . – “The disciple, etc.” Cf. Luk 22:64 with Act 23:2 ; Luk 23:1 with Act 22:30 ; Luk 23:2 with Act 24:5 ; Luk 23:4 , Luk 23:14 , Luk 23:22 with Act 23:29 ; Luke 25: 25 and Luke 26: 31 respectively, as showing “resemblances very marked” (Moffatt, p. 264, note). See also 2Ti 3:17 and note 129a above.

For these two verses reference may be made to Luther’s discourse in “Sermons,” pl. 49, and Spurgeon’s Sermon, No. 1248.

158b Luk 6:45 . – Cf. 2Co 6:11 .

159 Luk 6:46 ff. – See Spurgeon’s Sermon, No. 1702.

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Luk 6:1-5

1Now it happened that He was passing through some grainfields on a Sabbath; and His disciples were picking the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands, and eating the grain. 2But some of the Pharisees said, “Why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” 3And Jesus answering them said, “Have you not even read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him, 4how he entered the house of God, and took and ate the consecrated bread which is not lawful for any to eat except the priests alone, and gave it to his companions?” 5And He was saying to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Luk 6:1 “passing through some grainfields” This referred to the footpaths through the grain fields which surrounded the villages and towns. These “grainfields” could refer to any kind of cereal grain grown in this area (e.g., barley, wheat).

The Talmud taught that any journey over 2,000 paces on the Sabbath was considered work and, therefore, not permitted. It is interesting that the crowds, along with the Pharisees and the Scribes, were following Jesus on the Sabbath, therefore, they also were guilty of breaking this Sabbath law.

This reflects Luke’s continuing emphasis on the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders over the Oral Law (traditions of the Elders). Their legalism came from a sincere desire to keep God’s word! They were sincere and obviously very committed. They believed that Moses received the oral traditions from God on Mt. Sinai and passed them on verbally. It is at this point that Jesus’ three parables of Luk 5:33-39 are crucial.

“on a Sabbath” This phrase is found in MSS P4, , B, L, W and UBS4 gives it a “C” rating because a more unusual (unique) option, “on the second first Sabbath,” is found in MSS A, C, D, K, X, Delta.

There have been several theories about the unique wording.

1. From a Semitic expression from a Palestinian priestly calendar referring to the Sabbath after the feast of unleavened bread, but the second after Passover, from which the Jews count 50 days until Pentecost (cf. Lev 23:15, see Archer Bible Commentary, vol. 28, p. 607.

2. From a scribal error confusing the three mentions of Jesus’ activities of the Sabbath (cf. Luk 4:16; Luk 4:31; Luk 6:1, see Bruce Metzger, Textual Commentary, p. 139).

SPECIAL TOPIC: SABBATH

“His disciples were” Obviously the disciples were following their Master and were violating the traditional Sabbath laws (cf. Mat 12:1).

“picking the heads. . .rubbing them in their hands” The Pharisees considered the disciples’ actions as

1. harvesting

2. winnowing

3. preparing food on the Sabbath

These actions were illegal according to their oral traditions based on Exo 34:21. For one example of the rabbinic traditions see Shabbath Luk 7:2. Jesus’ disciples were not doing anything illegal in their actions according to the gleaning laws of the OT (cf. Deu 23:25); the problem was the day (cf. Gen 2:1-3; Exo 20:8-11; Exo 23:12; Exo 31:15; Deu 5:12-15) on which they did it! It seems that the Gospel writers record Jesus’ actions on the Sabbath to show

1. the controversies they caused

2. that Jesus did these kinds of things every day and the Sabbath was no exception

Luk 6:2 “some of the Pharisees” The Pharisees were assuming that Jesus was violating Exo 34:21. This shows that Jesus always had a crowd following Him. That crowd was made up of disciples, the sick, the curious, and representatives of the religious leaders trying to catch Him in a situation they could exploit.

It is this mixture (1) of motives and (2) the people to whom Jesus is speaking which causes some of Jesus’ teaching (without their specific context) to be so difficult to interpret because we are unsure to whom He addressed His teachings.

Luk 6:3 “Have you not even read what David did” This incident from David’s life seems to emphasize that human need takes precedence over legalistic rituals and traditions (cf. 1Sa 21:1-6). Just a brief comment about this account in 1 Samuel, I think David lied to the priest at Nob to protect him from the charge of helping David. Unfortunately he was killed by Saul for his supposed treason by helping David.

Luk 6:4 “the house of God” This refers to the Tabernacle (cf. Exodus 25-31).

“bread” This refers to the twelve large loaves of bread (which symbolized God’s provision for the Twelve Tribes) that were placed on the table in the Holy Place and were replaced every seven days. These loaves were for the priests alone to eat (cf. Exo 25:30; Lev 24:5-9). They weighed approximately 6 1/4 pounds.

“and gave it to his companions” This phrase is repeated in all three Synoptic Gospels (cf. Mat 12:3; Mar 2:25). This is the implication of 1 Samuel 21, but in reality, David was lying about having companions. He apparently did this to protect the priests at Nob whom he knew Saul would retaliate against. David’s companions, as well as other disgruntled Israelites, did not join him until 1Sa 22:1.

Luk 6:5 “The Son of Man” This was an adjectival phrase from the OT. It was used in Eze 2:1 and Psa 8:4 in its true etymological meaning of “human being.” However, it was used in Dan 7:13 in a unique context which implied both the humanity and deity of the person addressed by this new eschatological royal title (cf. Mar 8:38; Mar 9:9; Mar 13:26; Mar 14:26). Since this title was not used by rabbinical Judaism and, therefore, had none of the nationalistic, exclusivistic, militaristic implications, Jesus chose it as the perfect title of both veiling and revealing His dual nature, fully man and fully divine (cf. 1Jn 4:1-6). It was His favorite self-designation. It is used twenty three times in Luke (cf. Luk 5:24; Luk 6:5; Luk 9:22; Luk 9:26; Luk 9:44; Luk 9:58; Luk 11:30; Luk 12:8; Luk 12:10; Luk 12:40; Luk 17:22; Luk 17:24; Luk 17:26; Luk 17:30; Luk 18:8; Luk 18:31; Luk 20:13; Luk 21:27; Luk 21:36; Luk 22:22; Luk 22:48; Luk 22:69; Luk 24:7).

“is Lord of the Sabbath” This has staggering Messianic implications (cf. Mat 12:6). The Sabbath (see Special Topic at Luk 6:1) was divinely instituted (cf. Gen 2:1-3; Exo 28:11) and here Jesus claims to be Master and Ruler over it.

The Sabbath regulations had become the priority. These traditions, not love for humans made in God’s image, had become the issue of religion. The priority of rules had replaced the priority of people. Merit had replaced love. Religious traditions (i.e., the Oral Law) have replaced God’s intent (cf. Isa 29:13; Col 2:16-23).

How does one please God? A good OT analogy might be sacrifice. God intended it as a way for sinful, needy humanity to come to Him and restore broken fellowship, but it turned into ritual, liturgical procedure. So too, Sabbath law! Mankind had become the servant instead of the object (i.e., the reason for the laws).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

it came to pass. A Hebraism.

on. Greek. en. App-104. Not the same word as in Luk 6:20, Luk 6:39, Luk 6:49.

the second sabbath after the first. All this represents only one word in the Greek (deuteroprotos), i.e. the second-first. Occurs only here in the N.T. The first and second sabbaths can occur only in the week of the three great Feasts. The first day of these feasts is a Sabbath “high day “(Hebrew. porn tov)), and is the “first “or great sabbath, whatever day of the week it falls on (see Lev 23:7, Lev 23:24, Lev 23:35), the weekly sabbath then becomes the “

second. This “second sabbath “was therefore the ordinary weekly sabbath, as is clear from Mat 12:1. Not seeing this the current Greek texts solve the difficulty by omitting the word altogether! L Trm. WI R.

went = was going.

through. Greek dia. App-104. Luk 6:1.

corn fields. See Mat 12:1.

did eat = were eating.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

1-5.] THE DISCIPLES PLUCK EARS OF CORN ON THE SABBATH. Mat 12:1-8. Mar 2:23-28. Between the discourse just related here and in Mark, and this incident, Matthew interposes the raising of Jaeiruss daughter, the healing of the two blind and one dumb, the mission of the twelve, and the message of John. I need not insist on these obvious proofs of independence in the construction of our Gospels.

On the question of the arrangements, see on Matt.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Chapter 6

Now it came to pass on the second Sabbath ( Luk 6:1 )

Now He is going to deal with a couple of instances on the Sabbath day. We’ve been introduced now to the Pharisees; they’re beginning to really get into it and trying to find fault with Jesus and condemn Him for the things He is doing. And they condemned Him for eating with the publicans. He, of course, spoke out against their condemnation, telling them, “Hey, you guys belong in the old skins, and so I am just going not try and give you the new wine. We’re just going to create a whole new system here.” And now Luke points out a couple of Sabbath day experiences where He crossed the Pharisees.

It came to pass on the second sabbath after the first ( Luk 6:1 ),

Now that’s an interesting way of dating it. We don’t know when the first Sabbath was, but on the second Sabbath after the first,

he was going through the corn fields ( Luk 6:1 );

And, of course, that was the wheat, the little thing on the top where all of the grains of wheat are called a corn, and so they were going through the wheat fields.

and the disciples began to pick these little corns of wheat, and they ate them, rubbing them in their hands ( Luk 6:1 ).

Now around the later part of May when the wheat is turned brown and is getting dry, as you are in the area of Galilee it is a tremendous . . . it’s called the bread basket of Israel because they grow wheat there, and it grows so well. The winter wheat does so beautifully up there. And so you can take this wheat, and you rub it in your hands, and then you hold open your hands like this, and you blow it, blowing off the chaff, or the husk, and then you can eat the wheat. And it’s extremely healthy. As you chew, it forms a gum, and you can just chew that gum all day, or you can swallow it, but it’s just very healthy. You’re getting the raw fresh wheat. And when I am in Israel in that time of the year, I love to go through the fields and grab the wheat and do just like the disciples, rub it in my hands, and blow the chaff off and eat it. And it’s just so healthy, and so good for you.

Now this was perfectly legal under the law. If you were hungry, you could go into a field, and you could eat all that you needed to eat, you just couldn’t carry any out. You cant’ take a sickle into the field and start harvesting your neighbor’s field. But you could eat all that you needed in the field.

So it was perfectly legal for the disciples to go head and pick the wheat, and rub it in their hands, however, not on the Sabbath day. Because you weren’t to prepare food on the Sabbath day, nor were you to bear a burden. And the weight of the wheat would constitute a bearing a burden. So they began to find fault with the disciples and Jesus.

Why do you do that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath days? And Jesus answering said, Did you not read so much as this, that what David did when he was hungry, and those that were with him; how he went into the house of God, and took the showbread, and ate it, and gave also to those that were with him; which is not lawful to eat but for the priest alone? ( Luk 6:2-4 )

David was fleeing from Saul. He had his company of men with him, he came to the house of God. He asked the priest for something to eat. And he said, “Well, I don’t have anything.” And David said, “I’ll take the showbread here.” Now it was not lawful for any men to eat the showbread, but the priest. There were twelve loaves of bread that they sat out on the table before the Lord, represented of the twelve tribes of Israel. And God’s presence among the twelve tribes. And they would leave it out there on the table for seven days, and then the priests would eat it. Well, David came along, he was hungry, his men were hungry, and the priest said, “I don’t have anything to eat.” David said, “Alright, I’ll just take the showbread.” And so he took the showbread and he ate it, and he gave it to his men to eat. Not lawful to do. However, human need transcended the law. Human need. Now the disciples had a human need. Hungry, they were hungry going through the field. So they did what David did in essence. The human need transcended the law, and they ate.

And Jesus said, that the Son of man is Lord also [I rule over the Sabbath too, fellows]. So it came to pass on another Sabbath, [He was in Capernaum] and he entered into the synagogue and he was teaching: and there was a man whose right hand was withered ( Luk 6:5-6 ).

Now Matthew and Mark both tell us about this incident, only Luke tells us it was the right hand, but remember Luke is a doctor, and so he is interested in details of the person’s problems, physically. And so he is careful to note that it was the right hand that was withered.

And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against him. But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man that had a withered hand, Rise up, and stand here in the middle. And so the man stood up. And Jesus said unto them, I am going to ask you one thing, is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save a life or to destroy it? ( Luk 6:7-9 )

Now if you were asked that question, how would you answer it? On the Sabbath day is it lawful to do good, or to do evil? When is it ever lawful to do evil? When is it ever lawful to destroy a life? So really they couldn’t answer Jesus.

And looking around upon them all, he said to the man, Stretch forth your hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other. And they were filled with madness [not gladness] ( Luk 6:10-11 );

They were insane with their anger,.

And they began to commune with one another what they might be able to do with Jesus ( Luk 6:11 ).

He is really beginning to irritate them now.

We see suddenly how ludicrous their position is becoming. And when your position becomes untenable, because it is so ludicrous, then the only thing you can do is revered to violence. You know, you’re whipped, you better fight. You don’t have any reason, you’ve been wiped out, so what do you do? you fight. Because there is no reason to your position any longer.

So it should be noted that when Jesus said, “Stretch forth your hand,” He was making of that man an impossible demand. The man could have argued. He could have said, “Lord, I can’t stretch forth my hand, it’s withered, can’t you see? I’ve never been able to use this hand. You think if I could stretch forth my hand, I would just have it hanging here by my side all the time?” And he could very easily have argued with Jesus, and said,” well, I just can’t do it Sir, I wish I could, but I just cant’ do it. Because Jesus was making an impossible demand on him, when He said, stretch forth your hand. However, rather than arguing with Jesus, he tried to obey Him. When Jesus said, “Stretch forth your hand,” he tried to obey Him. Hey, all of a sudden he found out he could obey. But that’s impossible, I can’t do that, but there it is. Jesus made an impossible demand of him, he chose to obey, and in the very choosing to obey, the Lord immediately gave him all that was necessary to obey.

Now your problem is you’re standing and arguing. Jesus is making impossible demands on you. He is saying, “Be perfect, even as my Father in heaven is perfect” ( Mat 5:48 ). “Lord, there is no way I can be perfect, You know my flesh.” And you’re arguing, aren’t you? Jesus is saying, “Be strong.” “Well, Lord, You think if I could be strong I’d be wallowing in this weakness that I have, and going through all of this misery?” Jesus is saying, “Have victory.” “Lord, You think . . . how I want victory.” And you are arguing rather than obeying. The moment you will to obey the command of Jesus Christ, as impossible as it may seem, in that very moment He will give to you all that is necessary for you to fulfill that command. He does not command you to do anything, but what He will not empower you and enable you to do it, if you will only will to obey. I love it.

Now it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray ( Luk 6:12 ),

Again, Luke is giving us the insight to the prayer life of Jesus.

and he continued all night in prayer ( Luk 6:12 ).

You men that spend the all night vigils here in the prayer room, you know who is there with you every night? The Lord. He said, “Where two or three are gathered in My name, I am there” ( Mat 18:20 ). He was used to praying all night. You’re in good company. He spent the night in prayer, why? Because the next day He was going to be making some very important decisions. From those disciples that were following Him, He was going to choose twelve to be called apostles. Jesus prayed before important decisions were to be made. I think that that is a tremendous example for us, and we would be very wise to follow it. When we have important decisions to make to spend some time in prayer, seeking God’s guidance in those decisions.

So when the day came, he called unto him his disciples: and from them he chose twelve, whom he also named apostles ( Luk 6:13 );

And He gives us the name of the twelve.

Simon, (who he also named Peter,) Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon called the Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, who also was the traitor. And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of Judea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases ( Luk 6:14-17 );

So now He is drawing people, not only from the south, the area of Judea, and Jerusalem, but they are coming from the coastal northern areas of Tyre and Sidon to hear Him and to be healed.

And they that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed. And the whole multitudes sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and he healed them all ( Luk 6:18-19 ).

It is interesting that this declaration, and, of course, here a doctor is talking to you again, the physician Luke, talking about virtue going out of Jesus. But it is interesting to me that this follows His night in prayer, that this power now, this dimension, virtue begins to go out of Him, and people were coming up and touching Him in order to be healed.

And he lifted up his eyes ( Luk 6:20 )

And now, from here to the end of the chapter, we have an abbreviated version of the Sermon on the Mount. Mat 5:1-48; Mat 6:1-34; Mat 7:1-29, we have a longer version. There are some differences, enough, that some teachers do not believe that this is actually the Sermon on the Mount, but just another Sermon in which Jesus touched many of the points that He touched in the Sermon on the Mount. There is enough difference that does support that particular theory.

So he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and he said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God ( Luk 6:20 ).

You may be poor on this earth, and on this earth’s standards, but hey, you’re blessed because the kingdom of God belongs to you.

Blessed are you that hunger now: you will be filled. Blessed are you that weep now: you shall laugh. Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, when they will separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake [for my sake. Jesus said,] Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy ( Luk 6:21-23 ):

Now I haven’t seen any of you leaping for joy because someone was speaking against you at your job and got you in trouble, and they only did because you were a Christian. I have counseled a lot of people with long faces. They come in just discouraged, defeated, ready to quit, because of the trails they were going through at their job because they were Christians. “Oh, I can’t believe the hassle I’ve got this week,” or, “My foreman is really upset.” But the Lord said, “When that happens leap for joy, rejoice.” Why? Because your reward in heaven is great.

for in the same manner did they treat the prophets. But woe unto you who are rich! for you have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full! you will be hungry. Woe unto you that laugh now! you’re going to mourn and weep. Woe unto you, when all men speak well of you! because this is how they treated the false prophets. But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to those that hate you, bless those that curse you, pray for those that despitefully use you ( Luk 6:23-28 ).

Now suddenly Jesus is giving us a bunch of impossible commands. I am ready to argue. “Lord, how can I love my enemies? No way I can love my enemies. And I don’t want to do good to those that hate me. And I don’t want to bless those that curse me.”

You see, these are unnatural commands. They irritate me. I find myself arguing with them. I really do. I find myself arguing with this commands. Now as long as I am argue with them, I am always going to have a withered hand. I am never going to change. I’ll always be trying to get even. I’ll always be after the eye for an eye, and the tooth for a tooth. And seeking revenge, and being eaten up by ulcers. But if I just will to obey, “God I am willing to love, but you’re going to have to do it, I can’t do it.” Well, if I am willing, I will find that He will all for me that is necessary for me to obey that command. My part is to be willing to obey. Not to argue with Him, but just be willing to obey, and in that willingness you’ll discover the secret of victory. And the Lord will give to you the capacity and the power to obey the commands that He has given.

Now he that will smite you on the one cheek offer him the other; and if he takes away your cloak, don’t forbid him to take your coat also. To every man that ask of thee [give], and to him who takes away your goods don’t ask for them again. And as you would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise ( Luk 6:29-31 ).

Now so many of the teachers that put this in the negative. “Don’t do to anybody what you don’t want done to you.” That’s a very common thing.

Hallal, Confucius, and all of them said something similar to this, but it was always negative. Whatever is distasteful to you, and you don’t want that done to you, you just don’t do that to some one else, a good rule to follow.

Jesus put it in a positive sense. Hey, not just the negative, not just not hitting him because you don’t want him to hit you, but He put it in a positive sense. Whatever you would like people to do you, do that to them. How would you like them to treat you when you’ve made a mistake? You want them to be kind and understanding and sympathetic. Alright, that’s the way you should be to them when they’ve made a mistake; kind, sympathetic, and understanding. How you would like people to treat you? That’s the way you are to treat them, Jesus said. And so, He turns it from a negative to a positive. And so it leads us into actual positive actions rather than just refraining from negative things.

For if you love those which love you, so what? sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those which do good to you, so what? sinners do the same thing. If you lend to those of whom you’re hoping to receive a return, so what? sinners also lend, in order that they might get as much again. But love your enemies, do good, lend, hoping for nothing again; that your reward shall be great, and you shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind to everyone, the unthankful, the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful ( Luk 6:32-36 ).

Now again we find ourselves arguing, don’t we? But these are commands of the Lord. Rather than argue, let’s choose and will to obey.

Judge not, and you shall not be judged: condemn not, and you shall not be condemned: forgive, and you will be forgiven: give ( Luk 6:37-38 ),

And here the law of giving. Give: it’s a principle; it’s a spiritual law. We’ve learned to observe natural laws and live by them and profit from them, but we ought also to learn the spiritual laws, and this is a spiritual law; it works. You say, “I don’t know how it can work.” I don’t either, but I know it does.

Give, and it shall be given unto you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall men give unto your bosom. For with the same measure that you mete it out it will be measured to you again ( Luk 6:38 ).

Paul said if you sow sparingly, you’re going to reap sparingly. You sow bountifully, you’re going to reap bountifully. Whatever measure you mete, it shall be measured to you. So in the giving, the Lord will give back to you on whatever measure you give. However, He will give back more. Because He will give out, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.

So he spoke a parable; Can the blind lead the blind? will they not both fall in the ditch? And the disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master. And why do you behold the mote [the sliver] that is in your brother’s eye, and you don’t perceive the beam [the four by six] that is in your own eye? ( Luk 6:39-41 )

And I am sure Jesus said this with a smile. Because it gives you a good picture. Some guy with a four by six in his eye, trying to pull a sliver out of his neighbor’s eye. And so I am sure this was said with a smile and all. But oh, how typical it is of us. Those who are so critical, ready to find fault with the next person, ready to point out their flaws and their weaknesses, but oh, God help us. There is so much bad in the best of us. And so much good in the worst of us that it ill behooves any of us to speak of the rest of us. The Lord is saying, “Clean up your own act.”

Who can you say to your brother, Brother, let me take this sliver out of your eye, when you can’t behold the four by six that is in your eye? You hypocrite, first take the beam out of your own eye, and then you’ll be able to see clearly to pull the sliver that is in your brother’s eye. For a good tree does not bring forth corrupt fruit; neither does a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. And every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs ( Luk 6:42-44 ),

You don’t go out and gather figs off a cactus.

nor from a bramble bush [from a tumbling weed] you don’t gather grapes ( Luk 6:44 ).

Everything brings forth after its kind.

And thus a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bring forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks ( Luk 6:45 ).

And all you have to do is stand around and listen to a person’s conversation, and it doesn’t take long to reveal where their heart is. Out of the abundance of the heart a man speaks. It comes out. And you know, standing around listening to some people, is like standing near an open cesspool. You know what’s in their heart; it stinks.

And then Jesus asked a very interesting question. One that we should all be asking ourselves tonight.

Why do you call me, Lord, Lord, and you do not the things which I say? ( Luk 6:46 )

You see, the title Lord implies mastery. It implies servant. I am the servant, He is the Lord. In our culture we don’t understand what it was to be a slave. To not be able to own anything. To be the total property of another person. To be required to obey implicitly without question anything that was demanded of you. We independent Americans can’t even conceive of this. And so we find it easy to say, “Oh, Lord, oh Lord.”

And yet, how inconsistent it is if you call Jesus, Lord, and yet you don’t obey. Now He is just giving you a lot of things here to consider as far as obedience is concerned. Now James says, “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” ( Jas 1:22 ). As we read what Jesus ideally requiring of us, and commanding us to do and to be. And then we say, “Oh, Lord, I don’t think I can do that. Oh, Lord, there is no way I can do that.” And then His response is, “Why do you call me, Lord, unless you’re going to do the things I command you to do? You see, if you’re not obeying what I am commanding then I am really not your Lord.” That’s exactly what He is saying to you.

And so this really does create a cause for great self-examination. Paul the apostle tells us when we come to the Lord’s table, let a man examine himself, for if we’ll judge ourselves, we will not be judged of God. And I think that so often we are just prone to slough off some of the commands of Christ that we don’t quite agree with, or we don’t want to go along with. Then we pick and choose. “Oh, I like this one. Oh, this is my favorite, oh yea. Well, I don’t know about that one, I sort of think people interpret things different way, and I have a different interpretation.” But if I am going to use the title of Lord, then I need to take a look at His commands, and at least will to obey them. Not argue with them, but choose to obey them.

Now whosoever comes to me, and hears my sayings, and does them, I’ll show you what he is like: He is like a man which build a house, and he dug deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, and the stream vehemently upon the house, it could not shake it; because it was founded on a rock ( Luk 6:47-48 ).

The importance of digging deep and laying a good foundation for your faith in Jesus Christ and the word of God. Too many shallow foundations. Too many people just building a superstructure without a foundation. Building on emotions, building on experiences, building on exciting times, building on the glory, glory, hallelujahs. But when the storm comes, if you haven’t laid a good foundation on the rock, the house just isn’t going to stand.

He that hears, and does not, is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately fell; and the ruin of that house was great ( Luk 6:49 ).

Now both cases were subjected to the test of the storm. The Lord does not promise you immunity from problems, from trials, from hardship. It’s going to come to every man alike. Through life there are going to be difficult things that we are going to have to face that we cannot understand, or rationalize, as we try to think of a good, loving, just God, and try to rationalize our current situation on the basis of a loving, kind heavenly Father. The storm is going to come. It will beat vehemently. And if you haven’t taken the time to lay a good foundation, you’re going to find the whole system collapsing around you. And you’ll be swept away. How important, we dig deep, that we obey, that we do the things that Jesus commanded. We practice doing them, rather than just arguing with Him, telling Him why we can’t do them, and excusing our pleas. He doesn’t want you to excuse your condition, He wants you to change from your condition. You say, “I can’t do that.” That’s exactly right. He knows that. But do it anyhow. For when you will to obey, all that you need to obey will be given to you in that moment. God make us willing.

Shall we pray.

Father, we thank You again for the study of Your Word and, Lord, we do want to be doers of Your Word. As we go back and we again use on the commandments, and we find those that do irritate us, those that grate on us, O God, may we truly bow our hearts in submission and say, “Lord, I can’t, and I’m willing.” And may we, Lord, receive that ability and capacity from You to be and to do all that You want us to be and to do. Help us, Lord! We need Your help. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

May the Lord bless you, keep you, fill you with His love, His Spirit, His strength, His power. May the Lord enable you to go forth to do His will, obeying His commandments. In Jesus’ name. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Luk 6:1. , on the second Sabbath after the first) See the Ordo Temporum, p. 255, etc. [Ed. ii., p. 222, etc.] The Sabbath called was that one which combined the Sabbath and New Moon on one and the same day: the Sabbath was the day before the New Moon, and that too, in the present instance, the Sabbath on the last day of the month Ve-adar, in the 29th year of the common era.[58] On every Sabbath there was read, as the Haphtara or public lesson, 1Sa 20:18-42, concerning David. Appositely therefore, in Luk 6:3, our Lord quotes the case of what David did, from 1Sa 21:6.-Not. Crit. That year was with the Jews an intercalary one, and therefore the beginning of the month Nisan was late. Therefore already at that time they were having the ears ripe, namely, those of the barley crop.-V. g.

[58] Most scholars now explain the first of the seven numbered Sabbaths after the morrow of the Sabbath in the Passover feast. By the way, the reckoning from the morrow of the Sabbath in the Passover feast is a remarkable anticipation of the Resurection Lords-day Sabbath, under the law. This here marks the second main division of the Gospel History, and the opening of the second year in our Lords ministry.-ED. and TRANSL.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Luk 6:1-11

8. CONTROVERSY ABOUT THE SABBATH

Luk 6:1-11

1 Now it came to pass on a sabbath,-Parallel accounts may be found in Mat 12:1-14 and Mar 2:23-28; Mar 3:1-6. Another ground of pharisaic opposition to Jesus is here presented; it is the supposed violation of the law of the Sabbath. The Pharisees condemned the disciples of Jesus, and he defends them because a condemnation of his disciples, when they followed his teaching, was a condemnation of Jesus. Jesus and his disciples were going through the grainfields on a Sabbath “and his disciples plucked the ears, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.” The grain was possibly wheat or barley; as they went along through the standing grain, they plucked some of the grain and ate it. The footpath which they traveled led through the field and it was easy to pluck the grain as they went along. Plucking the grain was not a violation of the rights of property; they were not accused of trespassing; they were only accused of violating the Sabbath. The grain was eaten raw.

2-5 But certain of the Pharisees said,-The Pharisees asked: “Why do ye that which it is not lawful to do on the sabbath day?” In Matthew and Mark this question is addressed to Jesus concerning the conduct of his disciples; the inquiry was probably repeated in various forms in order to show their pious horror at the act; it seems from a comparison of these statements of Matthew, Mark, and Luke that Jesus did not himself eat of the corn; probably his mind was so intent on the great object of his mission as to be insensible to hunger at this time. We have different records of his beipg hungry and fatigued when his disciples were eating and resting; sometimes they were sleeping while he spent the time in prayer. (Mat 26:40; Mat 26:43; Mat 26:45; Mar 14:37; Mar 14:40-41; Luk 9:32; Luk 22:45.) The question is put in the form of an accusation it charges Jesus as being responsible for the violation of the Sabbath.

And Jesus answering them said,—Jesus was the leader; his disciples had done nothing that was virtually a violation of the Sabbath, so Jesus replies to the question or accusation. He knew that the charge was really made against him. Jesus refers them to what David did when he was hungry. (1Sa 21:1-6.) They regarded David as the faithful servant of God; they did not condemn David for what he had done, and yet Jesus and his disciples had done just what David had done under similar circumstances. Jesus put the case very emphatically by asking the question. David was fleeing from Saul and came to the tabernacle, which was located then at Nob, a place a little north of Jerusalem. (Isa 10:32.) David simply took and ate of the showbread, the bread set forth and exhibited on a table in the holy place. It consisted of twelve loaves, which were changed every Sabbath, when the old bread was eaten/ by the priests. (Lev 24:5-9.) It seems from 1Sa 21:6 that the bread had just been changed, and hence David and his men ate it on the Sabbath. Jesus shows by the example of David, whom all regarded as a faithful servant of God, that things which are unlawful may be done under the law of necessity and self-preservation. Matthew presents a second and third argument, the one derived from the labors of the priests in the temple, the other from the prophet Hosea (Hos 6:6), who declares that God desires not merely external observances, but the inward conditions of kindness and love. Mark (Mar 2:27) presents an argument not recorded by either Matthew or Luke that the Sabbath was designed for the good of man.

And he said unto them,-Here Jesus declares that “the Son of man is lord of the sabbath.” The final and crowning argument, growing out from the one just stated, and founded upon the relation of the Sabbath to Christ is here given. “The Son of man” means the Messiah is head of the human race; he does not here deny his divinity. He is “lord of the sabbath”; since he has come in human nature to redeem man, and all things pertaining to the human race are committed to him as its Head, he is emphatically the Lord of the Sabbath, which was made for the benefit of man. Jesus is indeed Lord of all things pertaining to the kingdom of God, hence he is Lord of the Sabbath.

6 And it came to pass on another sabbath,-Luke does not mean that this incident occurred on the following Sabbath from that on which they plucked the grain; he is only recording what took place “on another sabbath.” This time Jesus “entered into the synagogue and taught”; as opportunity was presented Jesus taught the people. He taught on the Sabbath in their synagogue because they assembled for worship on that day. This time “There was a man there, and his right hand was withered.” Luke alone mentions that it was “his right hand” that was withered. This is a very precise way of stating incidents;this accuracy is characteristic of Luke’s profession; ancient medical writers always state whether the right or the left member is affected. “Withered” means that he had lost the use of that hand, that it was diseased so that he could not use it. The “right hand” was usually the most useful. It was similar to that with which Jeroboam was afflicted. (1Ki 13:4-6.)

7 And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him,-The “scribes” were those who copied the law and finally became teachers of it; the “Pharisees” were those of that sect or party of the Jews who were particular about the traditions of the fathers. They had a bad motive in observing what Jesus would do. (Luk 14:1; Act 9:24.) They were watching Jesus maliciously. The growth of opposition is seen in that they now watch intently for an occasion to censure him. Possibly they thought that he would heal this man on the Sabbath they thought that they had Jesus in a dilemma; either he must heal the man on the Sabbath, or he must refuse to do good when he has the power to do it; they thought that they had the grounds for bringing charges against him whatever he did.

8 But he knew their thoughts;-This was an evidence of the divinity of Christ. Luke does not stop to prove his divinity, but takes it for granted. In the Old Testament God’s existence is treated this way. John expresses it as follows: “Because he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man.” (Joh 2:25.) Jesus commanded the man that had the withered hand to “rise up, and stand forth in the midst.” He did this so that all could see the man with the afflicted hand, and could see when it was healed. The man obeyed him and “stood forth.” Jesus makes the misery and the healing of the man conspicuous, yet he performs the cure with the word.

9, 10 And Jesus said unto them,-Jesus now put them in a dilemma; he asked them: “Is it lawful on the sabbath to do good, or to do harm?” They must admit that it was lawful to do good they must also admit that it is wrong to do harm or fail to do good when one has an opportunity. Some understand this to mean that the question is used in a general sense other than in a particular sense. However, Jesus first asks in regard to doing good or evil in a general sense on the Sabbath, and then in a particular sense, to destroy life or to save life.

And he looked round about on them all,-Matthew (Mat 12:11-12) records the reference to a sheep that had fallen into a pit, but Mark and Luke omit this point. Jesus “looked” “on them all.” That “look” of Jesus was very significant. Mark records (Mar 3:5) that Jesus “looked round about on them with anger”; he had a righteous indignation because of the hardness of their hearts. He silenced his opposer and then proceeded to heal the afflicted hand. He performed the miracle without any bodily effort, or any word except the command, “stretch forth thy hand.” The man obeyed and “his hand was restored.” The enemies of Jesus could not charge him with laboring on the Sabbath; he did no work, but spoke to the man. The healing took place immediately; Jesus had only to speak and the man had to obey. The faith of the man is brought into its natural relation to his obedience and cure. Jesus gave the command; the man believed, and obeyed, and received the blessing.

11 But they were filled with madness;-The scribes and Pharisees were answered before they had expressed their thoughts; Jesus had looked into their hearts and had answered them; they were displeased with this. They were deprived of legal ground of objection since the miracle was performed without any action on the part of Jesus; there was nothing left for them to do except to receive the testimony of Jesus that he was the promised Messiah, or reject him and all the evidence that he had furnished. They could not deny the evidence. They seek to satisfy themselves with a senseless rage;this was a foolish thing for them to do.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

In a synagogue our Lord healed the man with a withered hand, and the religious watchers were filled with anger because, according to their view, our Lord had desecrated the Sabbath. Surely, there is no desecration of divine ordinances so powerful as that severe orthodoxy which clogs the stream of compassion. By fulfilling its intention, the Lord of the Sabbath sacredly kept it in restoring this man to health and power.

Luke gives us here the account of our Lord’s choosing of the twelve. It is instructive and revealing that Luke tells us that our Lord preceded this election by a night of prayer. In the arrangement of the names we notice that they were placed in double harness, two by two, yet there was but one apostolate.

We have next our Lord’s discourse to His disciples, delivered in the hearing of the crowd. The difference between this address and the Sermon on the Mount is, among other things, in the omission here of all contrast between the old system and the new. Here we have the great principles for the blessing of humanity at large. Jesus ended His charge by a claim, quiet in its assumption of authority, and startling also, as He revealed the character which will abide in spite of all storms. Carefully note the threefold condition.

1. “Every one that cometh to Me.” surrender.

2. “And heareth My words,” discipleship.

3. “And doeth them,” obedience.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

6:1-5. The first Incident on the Sabbath (see Maurice, Lectures an St. Luke, pp. 82, 83 ed. 1879). The Call of Peter was followed by two healings which provoked opposition to Christ: and now the Call of Levi is followed by two incidents on the sabbath, which lead to similar opposition. Mk. agrees with Lk. in placing these two immediately after the call of Levi; Mt. has them much later (12:1-14). On the connexion here see Schanz, ad loc.

1. . This passage is a well-known crux in textual criticism and exegesis. Is part of the true text? If so, what does it mean? The two questions to some extent overlap, but it is possible to treat them separately.

1. The external evidence is very much divided, but the balance is against the words being original.1 The reading is Western and Syrian, and has no other clean pre-Syrian authority than that of D a ff. The internal evidence is also divided. On the one hand, The very obscurity of the expression, which does not occur in the parallel Gospels or elsewhere, attests strongly to its genuine. ness (Scriv.), for there is no reason which can explain the insertion of this word, while the reason for omitting it is obvious (Tisch.) On the other hand, all known cases of probable omission on account of difficulty are limited to single documents or groups of restricted ancestry, bearing no resemblance to the attestation of text in either variety or excellence (WH.). Moreover, if any sabbath had really borne this strange name, which is introduced without explanation as familiar to the readers, it would almost certainly have been found elsewhere, either in LXX, Philo, Josephus, or the Talmud. In the life of Eutychius (512-582) by his chaplain Eustathius is used of the first Sunday after Easter, but the expression is obviously borrowed from this passage, and throws no light. In the whole of Greek literature, classical, Jewish, or Christian, no such word is found independently of this text. The often quoted , second tenth (Hieron. ad Ez. xlv. 13), gives no help. The analogy of , , …, suggests the meaning of a sabbath which for a second time is first; that of , which Heliodorus (apud Soran. Med. vet.) uses for last but one, suggests the meaning first but one i.e. second of two firsts. But what sense, suitable to the passage, can be obtained from either of these? The more probable conclusion is that the word is spurious.

How then did it get into the text and become so widely diffused? The conjecture of Meyer is reasonable. An early copyist inserted to explain in ver. 6; this was corrected to because of 4:31; and the next copyist, not understanding the correction, combined the two words. A few MSS. have the reading , among them R (Cod. Nitriensis). a pampsest of the sixth cent. in the British Museum. See Knights Field.

2. If the word is genuine, what can be its meaning? Jerome put this question to Gregory Nazianzen, and the latter eleganter lusit, saying, Docebo te superhac re in ecclesia (Hieron. Ep. 52.). Of the numerous conjectures the following may be mentioned as not altogether incredible. (1) The first sabbath of the second year in a sabbatical cycle of seven years. This theory of Wieseler has won many adherents. (2) The first sabbath in Nisan. The Jewish civil year began in Tisri, while the ecclesiastical year began in Nisan; so that each year there were two first sabbaths, one according to civil, the other according to ecclesiastical reckoning: just as Advent Sunday and the first Sunday in January are each, from different points of view, the first Sunday in the year. It would be possible to call the second of the two a second first Sunday. But would anyone use such languale and expect to be understood? (3) The first sabbath of the second month. It is asserted that the story of David obtaining the shewbread would often be in the lesson for that sabbath. But the lectionary of the synagogues in the time of Christ is unknown. See on 4:17. For other guesses see Godet, McClellan, and Meyer. Most editors omit or bracket it. Tisch. changed his decision several times, but finally replaced it in his eighth edition.

. Excepting Rom 15:24, the verb is peculiar to Lk. (13:22, 18:36; Act 16:4). In N.T. occurs only here and parallels. In Theophr. (H. P. vi. 5. 4) we have , sc. . In Gen 1:29 it is applied to the seed, ; so that like , it can be used either of the field or of the seed.

. For this Mk. has , which has been interpreted to mean began to make a way by plucking the ears. But (1) all three imply that Jesus was walking in front of the disciples. What need was there for them to make a way? (2) How would plucking the ears make a path? (3) In LXX is used for iter facere (Jdg 17:8). All three mean that the disciples went along plucking the ears. This was allowed (Deu 23:25).

. This and the constituted the offence: it was unnecessary labour on the sabbath. According to Rabbinical notions, it was reaping, thrashing, winnowing, and preparing food all at once. Lk. alone mentions the rubbing, and the word seems to occur elsewhere only in the medical writer Nicander (Theriaca, 629). It is from the obsolete , a collat. form of . Comp. Hdt. iv. 75, 2. For the action described see Robinson, Res. in Pal. i. pp. 493, 499.

2. . As in 5:30, they are represented as addressing their question to the disciples. In Mar 2:24 and Mat 12:2 the charge against the disciples is addressed to Christ, while in Mar 2:16 and Mat 9:11 the charge against Christ is addressed to the disciples. The may mean either on the sabbath days (AV. and most English Versions) or on the sabbath day (RV.). Although Vulg. has in sabbatis, Wic. has in the saboth; Cov. also upon the sabbath. See on 4:31,

3. . Have ye not read even this that David did? Does your knowledge not extend even thus far? RV. follows AV. in translating as if it were the same as the of Mt. and Mk., what David did.

. The young men, whom David was to meet afterwards. He came to Nab alone (1Sa 21:1).

4. . This is not stated in O.T., but may be inferred from his being seen by Doeg the Edomite, who was detained before the Lord: i.e. he was in the tabernacle as a proselyte, perhaps to be purified, or to perform a vow.

. Lit. the loaves of the setting forth. These were the twelve loaves of wheaten bread placed before the Lord in the Holy Place every sabbath. The word shewbread first appears in Coverdale, probably from Luthers Schaubrote. Wic. follows the panes propositionis of Vulg. with looves of proposisiounn, which is retained in Rhem. Tyn. has loves of halowed breed. In O.T. we have also , i.e. of the presence of God (1Sa 21:6; Neh 10:33), or (Exo 25:30), or (1Ki 7:48), or again , i.e. the perpetual loaves (Num 4:7). But the expression used here, Mat 12:4 and Mar 2:26, occurs Exo 39:36?, 40:23; 1Ch 9:32, 1Ch 23:29: comp. 2Ch 4:19. For the origin of (Heb 9:2) comp. 2Ch 13:11, 2Ch 29:18. See Edersh. The Temple, pp. 152-157; Herzog, Pro_2 art. Schaubrote.

. This also is not stated in 1 Sam. 21., but it is implied in Davids asking for five loaves, and in Abimelechs asking whether the wallets of the young men were Levitically clean. For c. acc. et inf. see on 20:22.

5. . In all three accounts comes first with emphasis. The Son of Man controls the Sabbath, not is controlled by it. This does not mean that He abrogates it (Mat 5:17-20), but that He has power to cancel the literal observance of it in order to perform or permit what is in accordance with its spirit. Mk. gives the additional reason that the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath, i.e. that it was given to be a blessing, not a burden. Even the Rabbis sometimes saw this; The sabbath is handed over to you; not, ye are handed over to the sabbath (Edersh. L. & T. 2. p. 58). Ritual must give way to charity. The Divine character of the Law is best vindicated by making it lovable; and the Pharisees had made it an iron taskmaster. And, if the sabbath gives way to man, much more to the Son of Man. In Joh 5:17 Christ takes still higher ground. The Father knows no sabbath in working for mans good, and the Son has the same right and liberty. For see on 5:24. The point here is that Christ as the representative of man defends mans liberty.

Cod. D transfers ver. 5 to after ver. 10, and instead of it has the remarkable insertion: , , , . For comp. 12:14; Gal 3:10; , Rom 2:25, Rom 2:27; Jam 2:11. It is possible that the tradition here preserved in Cod. D is the source from which both S. Paul and S. James derive the phrase . In Rom. 2., where it occurs twice, we have the address twice (vv. 1, 3). There is nothing incredible in Christs having seen a man working (not necessarily in public) on the sabbath. The words attributed to Christ are so unlike the undignified, silly, and even immoral inventions in the apocryphal gospels that we may believe that this traditional story is true, although it is no part of the Canonical Gospels. D has other considerable insertions Mat 20:28 and Joh 6:56. See A. Resch, Agrapha Aussercanonische Evangelienfragmente (Leipzig, 1889) pp. 36, 189.

6-11. The Second Incident on the Sabbath. Mat 12:9 would lead us to suppose that it was the same sabbath ( ). Lk. definitely states that it was , but not that it was on the very next sabbath following. He alone mentions that Jesus taught in the synagogue on this occasion, and that the withered hand that was healed was the right one.

6. . The same Hebraistic constr. as in ver. 1, somewhat modified in accordance with classical usage: see note at the end of ch. 1. We have at the Pool of Bethesda (Joh 5:3); but outside N.T. the word seems to mean, when applied to the human body, either not wet or lean.

7. . Lk. alone tells us who the spies were. Mt. puts their inquisitiveness into words, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day? The verb signifies watch narrowly, esp. with sinister intent, perhaps from looking sideways out of the corner of ones eyes, ex obliquo et occulto. As in Gal 4:10, the mid. gives the idea of interested observance. Mk. has : comp. 20:20; Sus. 12, 15, 16; Polyb. xvii. 3. 2; Aris. Rhet. ii. 6, 20; Top. vii. 11, 1.

. The present has reference to His habitual practice, of which His conduct on this occasion would be evidence. But B with other authorities read , which is probably genuine in Mar 3:2, and may be genuine here. The future would limit the question to the case before them.

. According to what is probably the invariable rule in N.T. we have the subj. in spite of the past tense on which the final clause is dependent. The opt. for this purpose is obsolete; for (Mar 9:30) and similar forms are probably meant to be subj. Simcox, Lang,. of N.T. p. 107.

8. . But He, in contrast to these spies (5:16, 8:37, 54) knew their thoughts. For comp. 2:35, 5:22, 9:46, 24:38. It commonly means intellectual and inward questioning rather than actual dis puting: but see on 5:22 and comp. 1Ti 2:8.

. To the man who had his hand withered, not who had the withered hand. For comp. 5:12: Mt. and Mk. have .

. Lk. alone has . Christs method is as open as that of His adversaries is secret. Arise and stand into the midst i.e. Come into the midst and stand there: comp. 9:7; Act 8:40. Win. l. 4, b, p. 516. In what follows note Lk.s favourite (1:39), which neither Mt. nor Mk. has here.

None of them records any words of the man; but Jerome in commenting on Mat 12:13 states, in evangelio quo utuntur Nazareni et Ebionit homoiste qui aridam habet manum cmentarius scribitur, istiusmodi vocibus auxilium precans, Cmentarius eram, manibus victum quritans. precor te, Jesu, ut mihi restituas sanitatem, ne turpiter mendicem cibos. See on 18:25.

9. . He answers the questioning in their hearts by a direct question which puts the matter in the true light. To refuse to do good is to do evil; and it could not be right to do evil on the sabbath.

The reading of TR., , is wrong in both variations; and has the disadvantage of being ambiguous, for may be indefinite or interrogative. I will ask you something, Is it lawful? etc. Or, I will ask you what is lawful, etc.

. It was a principle of the Rabbinists that periculum vit pellit sabbatum; but the life must be that of a Jew. This canon was liberally interpreted; so that a large number of diseases might be attended to on the Sabbath, as being dangerous. These modifications of the rigid rule were based on the principle that it was lawful to do good and avert evil on the sabbath; and to this Jesus appeals. If the Pharisees said, This mans life is not in danger, the answer would have been easy, You do not know that, any more than in the cases always allowed. The addition of has special point, for this was what these objectors were doing. They did not consider that they were breaking the sabbath in plotting to destroy Jesus on this day (ver. 7). Were they to be allowed to destroy, while He was forbidden to save?

10. . Mk. adds, still more graphically, , : but is peculiar to Lk. See on 7:35 and 9:43. Mt. omits the whole of this, but inserts the case of the sheep fallen into a pit. Lk. has a similar question about a son or ox fallen into a well, which was asked on another occasion (14:5).

. As His challenge to His enemies remained unanswered, He now makes trial of the man. The attempt to obey this command was evidence of his faith.

With the double augment in comp. , , , , , which occur in vinous writers. Exo 4:7, ; Jer 23:8, Ign. Smyr. xi., . Win. 12:7. a, p. 84.

D Cod. here inserts ver. 5.

11. . The phrensy or loss of reason which is used by extreme excitement; dementia rather than insipientia (Vulg.) or amentia (Beza). Plato distinguishes two kinds of , , (Tim. 86 B). It is the former which is intended here. Elsewhere 2Ti 3:9; Pro 22:15; Ecc 11:10; Wisd. 15:18, 19:3; 2 Mal 4:6, etc.

. What they should do, if they did anything. In Lk. the opt. is still freq. in indirect questions: see on 3:15. Mk. says that the Pharisees forthwith took counsel with the Herodians how they might destroy Him (). They would be glad of the assistance of the court party to accomplish this end. With their help Antipas might be induced to treat Jesus as he had treated the Baptist. Lk. nowhere mentions the Herodians.

The Aeolic form is not found is the best MSS, here. In Act 17:27 is probably genuine.

6:12-8:56. From the Nomination of the Twelve to Their First Mission

In proportion as the work of Christ progresses the opposition between Him and the supporters of moribund Judaism is intensified.

12-16. The Nomination of the Twelve. Common to all three: comp. Mar 3:13-19; Mat 10:2-4. Llection des Douze est le premier acte organisateur accompli par Jsus-Christ. Sauf les sacraments, cest le seul. Car cait ce collge, une fois constitu, qui devait un jour faire le reste (Godet).

12. .. See on 1:39. This expression, and and with the participle, are characteristic of Lk., and are not found in the parallels in Mt. and Mk. For the constr. comp. vv. 1 and 6; for see Introd. 6. The momentous crisis of choosing the Twelve is at hand, and this vigil is the preration for it.

. Here only in N.T., but not rare elsewhere; Job 2:9 (where LXX has much which is not in the extant Heb.); Jos. Ant. vi. 13. 9; B. J. i. 29, 2; Xen. Hellen. v. 4, 3. The analytical tense emphasizes the long continuance of the prayer.

. The phrase occurs nowhere else. It means prayer which has God for its object: comp. (Rom 10:2); (Joh 2:17); (Gal 3:22). Win. xxx. 1. a, p. 231.1 That here means an oratory or place of prayer is incredible: see on Act 16:13, Lightfoot says that some Rabbis taught that God prays: Let it be My will that My mercy overcome My wrath. But such trifling has no place here. Mar 11:22 and Jam 2:1 are perhaps parallel.

13. . The phrase is freq. in Lk. (4:42, 22:66; Act 12:18, Act 12:16:35, Act 12:23:12, 27:29, 33, 39).-. Called to Him, summoned. This is the more correct use of the word. Elsewhere in N.T. it means address, call to; and, excepting Mat 11:16, it is used only by Lk. (7:32, 13:12, 23:20; Act 21:40, Act 22:2).- . These are the larger circle of disciples, out of whom He selected the Twelve. Comp. Joh 6:70; Mat 19:28; Rev 21:14. That either the larger circle or the Twelve had spent the night with Him is neither stated nor implied.

. This implies the telling over () in preference to others () for ones own advantage (mid.). The word is fatal to Langes theory that Judas was forced upon our Lord by the importunity of the other Apostles (L. of C. ii. p. 179).

. Not at the time possibly, but afterwards. The marks the naming as a separate act from the election. The word is used only once each by Mt. (10:2), Mk. (6:30), and Jn. (8:16); by Lk. six times in the Gospel (9:10, 9:49, 17:5, 22:14, 24:10) and often in the Acts. In the Gospels the Twelve are generally called the Twelve. The word occurs once in, LXX, (1Ki 14:6); and once in N.T. it is used of Christ (Heb 3:1), See Lft. Galatians, pp. 92-101, 6th ed.; D. B.2 art. Apostle Harnack in Texte u. Untersuch. ii. 111 ff.; Sanday on Rom 1:1. The theory that Lk. writes in order to depreciate the Twelve, does not harmonize with the solemn importance which he assigns to their election. And criticism is out of harmony with itself, when it adopts this theory, and then suggests that Lk. has invented this early election See on 22:45.Mar 3:14 is doubtful.

14-16. In construction the twelve names are in apposition to , and the narrative is not resumed until ver. 17. The four lists of the Apostles preserved in the Synoptic Gospels and the Acts agree in two main features. 1. The names are arranged in three groups of four. 2. The same Apostles, War, Philip, and James of Alphus, stand first in each group. Only in respect of one name is there material difference between the lists. In the third group Lk. both here and Act 1:13 has Judas of James; for whom Mt. (10:3) and Mk. (3:18) have Thaddus or Lebbus. In both places Thaddus is probably correct, Lebbus being due to an attempt to include Levi among the Apostles. Levi = Lebi or Lebbi, the Greek form of which might be , as of Thaddi. Some Mss. read , which is still closer to Levi. See WH. ii. App. pp. 12, 24. The identification. of Thaddus with Judas of James solves the difficulty, and there is nothing against it excepting lack of direct evidence. No pairing oft he Apostles is manifest in this list as in that of Mt. If the after be omitted, there is a break between the second and third group; but otherwise the list is a simple string of names. In the first six names Lk. agrees with the first three pairs of Mt. In the other six he places Matthew before Thomas (while Mt. places himself last in his group) and Simon, Zelotes before Judas of James.

14. . The similarity to the preceding clause is marked. This certainly does not mean that Simon received the name of Peter on this occasion, and there is nothing to show that the Twelve received the name of Apostles on this occasion. But it should be noticed that henceforth Lk. always speaks of him as Peter (8:45, 51, 9:20, 28, 32, 33, 12:41, etc.) and not as Simon. In 22:31 and 24:34 Lk. is quoting the words of others. Hitherto he has called him Simon (4:38, 5:3, 4, 5, 10) and once Simon Peter (5:8), but, never Peter. In the Acts he is never called Simon without the addition of the surname. The usage with regard to the names Saul and Paul is very similar. See papers by Dean Chadwick on The Group of the Apostles and on Peter in Expositor, 3rd series, vol. 9. pp. 100-114, 187-199, 1889; also Schanz, ad loc. p. 216.

. Only in his lists of the Apostles does Lk. mention Andrew. Mt. mentions him on one other occasion, and Mk. on three others (Mat 4:18; Mar 1:16, Mar 1:29, Mar 1:13:3). Nearly all that we know about him comes from Jn. (1:41, 44, 6:8, 12:22). Although one of the earliest disciples, he does not become one of the chosen three, although Mar 13:3 seems to indicate special intimacy. For legends respecting him see Lipsius, Apokryphen Apostelgeschichten u. Apostellegenden, i. pp. 543-622; Tregelles, Canon Muratorianus, pp. 17, 34.

. This is their order according to age, and it is observed in all three Gospels; in Act 1:13 John precedes James. The fact that James was the first of the Twelve to be put to death is evidence that he was regarded as specially influential. James and John were probably first cousins of the Lord; for, according to the best interpretation of Joh 19:25, their mother Salome was the sister of the Virgin Mary. That the title of Boanerges was given to them at the time of the appointment of the Twelve (D. B.2 i. p. 1509) is a baseless hypothesis. See Trench, Studies in the Gospels, pp. 138-146; Suicer, Thesaurus, s.v. . For legends see D. B.2 i. p. 1511; Lipsius, iii. pp. 201-228, i. pp. 348-542.

. All that we know of him comes from Jn. (1:44-49, 6:5-7, 12:21, 22, 14:8, 9). There seems to have been some connexion between him and Andrew (Joh 1:44, Joh 12:22); and both in Mar 3:18 and Act 1:13 their names are placed together in the lists; but the nature of the connexion is unknown. Lipsius, iii. pp. 1-53.

. The ancient and common identification with Nathanael is probable, but by no means certain. 1. As Bar-tholomew is only a patronymic, son of Talmai, the bearer of it would be likely to have another name. 2. The Synoptists do not mention Nathanael; Jn. does not mention Bartholomew. 3. The Synoptists place Bartholomew next to Philip, and Philip brought Nathanael to Christ. 4. The companions of Nathanael who are named Joh 21:2 are all of them Apostles. Lipsius, iii. pp. 54-108.

15. . In all three these names are combined; but Mt. reverses the order, and after his own name adds , which is found in none of the other lists. All that we know of Thomas is told us by Jn. (11:16, 14:5, 20:24-29, 21:2). Lipsius, iii. pp. 109-141, i. pp. 225-347.

. His father is probably not the father of Levi (Mar 2:14), and James himself is certainly not the brother of the Lord (Mat 13:55; Mar 6:3; Gal 1:19) who was the first over seer of the Church of Jerusalem (Act 12:17, Act 12:15:13; Gal 2:9, Gal 2:12) The brethren of the Lord did not believe on Him at this time (Joh 7:5), and none of them can have been among the Twelve. But the Apostle James the son of Alphus is probably identical with James the Little (Mat 27:56; Mar 15:40; Joh 19:25), for Alphus and Clopas may be two different Greek forms of the Aramaic Chalpai; but this is uncertain. See Mayor, Ep. of S. James, pp. 1-46; also Expositors Bible, S. James and S. Jude, pp. 25-30 (Hodder, 1891). In all the catalogues James of Alphus heads the third group of Apostles. Lipsius, iii. 229-238.

.1 Lk. has this in both his lists, while Mt. and Mk. have , which in some authorities has been corrupted into . Neither of these forms can mean Canaanite, for which the Greek is (Mat 15:22 and LXX), nor yet of Cana, for which the Greek would be . is the Aramaic Kanan in a Greek form (on the analogy of from Pharish and from Chasid) and = . Lipsius, iii. pp. 142-200. See on 1:36.

Rhem. leaves the word untranslated, Cananus, and Wic. makes it unintelligible, Canane. All the other English Versions make it a local adj., of Cana or of Cane, or of Canaan, or of Canaanite. or the canaanite. The last error seems to begin with Cranmer in 1539. RV. is the first to make clear that Kananan means Zealot. Lft. On Revision, pp. 138, 139 (154, 155, 2nd ed.); Fritzsche on Mat 10:4. The Zealots date from the time of the Maccabees as a class who attempted to force upon others their own rigorous interpretations of the Law. S. Paul speaks of himself as (Gal 1:14), i.e. he belonged to the extreme party of the, Pharisees (Act 22:3, Act 22:23:6, Act 22:26:5; Php 3:5, Php 3:6). Large numbers of this party were among the first converts at Jerusalem (Act 21:20). From these extremists had sprung the revolt under Judas of Galilee (Act 5:37; Jos. Ant. xviii. 1, 1, 6), and the Sicarii, who were the proximate cause of the destruction of Jerusalem (Jos. B. J. iv. 3, 9, 5, 1, 7, 2, vii. 8, 1, 10. 1, 11, 1). Milman, Hist. of the Jews, ii. pp. 191, 291, 299, 323, 4th ed. 1866; Ewald, Hist. of Israel, vii. 559 ff., Eng. tr.; Herzog, Pro_2 art. Zeloten. Whether the Apostle Simon was called because he had once belonged to this party, or because of his personal character either before or after his call, must remain uncertain.

16. . That there were two Apostles of the name of Judas is clear from Joh 14:22, although Mt. and Mk. mention only one; and the identification of their Thaddus with the Judas not Iscariot of Jn. and with this Judas of James makes all run smoothly. must be rendered Judas the son of James, not the brother of James, for which there is no justification. When Lk. means brother he inserts (3:1, 6:14; Act 12:2). Nonnus in his Paraphrase () of Joh 14:22 has . (Jud 1:1) is quite a different person, viz. the brother of James the )Lords brother. Tyn. Cov. and Cran. rightly supply sonne here, and Luth. also has sohn The error begins with Bezas fratrem. Of this James, the father of Judas Thaddus, nothing is known. Lk. adds the name of the father, because his arrangement places this Judas next to the traitor.

. This epithet probably means man of Kerioth, which was a place in Judah (Jos 15:25), or possibly in Moab (Jer 48:24). Joh 6:71 confirms this; for there and Joh 13:26 the true reading gives Judas son of Simon Iscariot; and if the name is a local epithet, both father and son would be likely to have it. In this case Judas was the only Apostle who was not a Galilean, and this may have helped to isolate him. Other derivations of Iscariot, which connect the word with lying, or strangling, or apron, i.e. bag, or date-trees (), are much less probable. We know nothing about Simon Iscariot. Farrar identifies him with Simon Zelotes, which is most improbable. Simon was one of the commonest of names. The MSS. vary between , which is right here, and , which is right 22:3. Here only is used of Judas: it occurs in the plur. Act 7:52; 2Ti 3:4; and in the sing. 2 Mac. 5:15, 10:13. All English Versions go wrong about . Nowhere in Scripture is Judas styled the traitor, and should be distinguished from : therefore, not was the traitor, but became a traitor, as the American Revisers proposed. Judas turned traitor. The difficulty about the call of Judas is parallel to the powers bestowed upon a Napoleon. The treason of Judas shows that no position in the Church, however exalted, gives security against the most complete fall.

The verb used of the treachery of Judas is never , but (22:4, 6, 21, 22, 48; Mat 10:4; Mar 3:19; Joh 6:64, Joh 6:71). In class. Grk. commonly has this meaning; rarely. Here the Lat. texts vary between proditor (Vulg.) and traditor (c f ff2 r) and qui tradidit eum or illum (d e).

17-19. The Descent from the Mountain, and many Miracles of Healing. The parallel passages in Mar 3:7-12 and Mat 4:24, Mat 4:25 are very different from Lk. and from one another in wording.

17. . This may mean a level spot below the summit; but in connexion with , and without qualification, it more naturally means level ground near the foot of the mountain. Hither it would be more likely that multitudes would come and bring their sick, than to a plateau high up the mountain.

The Latin texts vary: in loco campestri (Vulg.), in loco campense (a), in l. lano (f) in l. pedeplano (1.).

. Not a nom. pendens, but included in the preceding : comp. the constr. 8:1-3. He stood, and they stood. But the is no evidence as to Christs attitude during the discourse, because the healings intervene: 4:20 shows that Lk. is aware of Christs sitting to preach.

, … This is a third group. Christ and the Twelve form one group. The multitude of disciples in the wider sense form a second. And besides these there is a mixed throng from Juda and the sea-coast: see on 11:29.

. The prep, is not classical; but we say to to be cured from (Mar 5:29). In the perf., 1 aor. and 1 fut. pass. the dep. is pass. in meaning (7:7, 8:47, 17:15; not Act 3:11). Except in Lk, the verb is rare in N.T. writers.-There should be at least a colon at : here the long sentence which began at ver. 13 ends.

18, 19. For similarly condensed accounts of groups of miracles comp. 4:40, 5:15, 7:21. We once more have an amphibolous expression: see on 2:22. Here may be taken either with or with . From ver. 17 and 7:21 we infer that the latter constr. is right: They that were troubled with them were healed of unclean spirits. But in the other cases the gen. with follows the verb; so that may be right. The and before were healed in AV. is from a corrupt reading: not only Wic. and Rhem. with Vulg., but also Cov., omit the and. For see on 4:33. Note and here and in ver. 17. They are not found in Mar 3:7, Mar 3:10: see on ver. 30. With comp. Joh 16:27. Lk. commonly writes : see small print on 4:35, and comp. 8:46, which illustrates , and . For and see on 4:36.

20-49. The Sermon . D.B. v. art. Sermon.

To call it the Sermon on the Plain, following the AV. in ver. 17, is convenient, but scarcely justifiable. The plain has not been mentioned, and does not occur in N.T. Moreover, it is by no means certain that this was at the foot of the mount. And to talk of the Sermon on the Plain assumes, what cannot be proved, that the discourse here recorded is entirely distinct from the Sermon on the Mount (Mat 5:1-7, Mat 5:29). The relations between the two discourses will never cease to be discussed, because the materials are insufficient for a final decision. The following are the chief hypotheses which have been suggested in order to explain the marked similarities and differences. 1. They are reports, at first or second hand, of two similar but different discourses, distinct in time, place, and circumstance (Auger, Greswell, Osiander, Patritius, Plumptre, Sadler; so also in the main Barradius, Basil, Doddridge, Toletus, Tostatus). 2. They are reports of two different discourses delivered on the same day, Mt. giving the esoteric address to the disciples on the mountain, Lk. the exoteric address to the mixed multitude below (Augustine, Lange), 3. The are recensions, with interpolations and omissions, of two independent reports of one and the same sermon (Schleiermacher). 4. They are recessions of the same report, to which Mt. adds material from other sources, and from which Lk. perhaps omits portions (B. Weiss). 5. Mt. gives a conflate arrangement of sayings which were uttered on various occasions, and some of these occasions are given by Lk. (Bleek, Calvin, Godet, Holtzmann, Keim, Kuinoel, Neander, Pott, Semler, Weizscker, Wieseler). 6. Both sermons are a conglomeration of detached sayings collected into an anthology of aphorisms (Strauss, and to some extent Baur). Besides the writers mentioned above under the last four heads, a multitude of commentators adopt the view that the main portions of the reports given by Mt. and Lk. represent one and the same discourse (Bengal, Bucer, Calovius, Caspari, Chemnitz, Chrysostom, De Wette, Ebrard, Edersheim, Ellicott, Ewald, Farrar, Fritzsche, Grotius, Hilgenfeld, Keim, Lewin, Luther, McClellan, Meyer, Milman, Olshausen, Oosterzee, Origen, Robinson, Schanz, Schneckenburger, Sieffert, Stroud, Tholuck, Tischendorf, Wordsworth).

Bad or inadequate arguments are used on both sides. It is a great deal too much to say with Schleiermacher that the fact that the portions common to both appear in the same order, with the same beginning and end, Proves incontrovertibly the identity of the discourse. Any preacher repeating a carefully prepared sermon would begin and end in the same way, and would put his points in the same order. And it is mere dogmatism without argument when Sadler asserts that the Lord must have pronounced each [beatitude] which St. Matthew records, and yet it is equally plain that He could hardly have pronounced them according to St. Lukes form. He would not have said, Blessed are ye meek ones, Blessed are ye merciful ones, Blessed are ye peacemakers. The four given by St. Luke are the only ones which could well have been pronounced personally on the disciples; so that the beatitudes as given by St. Matthew and St. Luke respectively, could not have been altered forms of the same discourse. Much more reasonable is the position of Grotius, who beleives that both record the same sermon: sicut facti narrationes circumstantiis congruents non temere ad res diversas referend sunt, ita sermones nihil vetat spius habitos eosdem aut similes, prsertim continents vit totius prcepta, qu non potuerunt nimium s repeti (on Luk 6:17). We know beyond all question that some of our Lords words were uttered several times, and there is nothing antecedently improbable in the hypothesis that the words of this discourse, qu non potuerunt nimium spe repeti, were delivered one or other of these forms more than once. Nor does it follow that those portions which Lk. gives as having been uttered on other occasions were not also uttered as parts of a continuous discourse. A preacher naturally repeats fragments of his own sermons in giving catechetical instruction, and also gathers up detached items of instruction when composing a sermon. The fact that Lk. meant to record these other occasions may have been part of his reason for omitting the similar words in this discourse. Another consideration which may have determined his selection is the thought of what would best suit Gentile readers. But in any case the dictum of Grotius must be remembered, that the hypothesis of a repetition of verbally similar sayings may be used with much more freedom than hypothesis of a repetition of circumstantially similar acts.

The conclusion arrived at by Sanday and P. Ewald is of this kind. The beatitudes originally stood in the Logia in a form similar to that in Mat 5:3-12. Lk. used the Logia, but had also a rocument entirely independent of the Logia; and this contained a discourse, spoken originally on some other occasion, but yet so like the Sermon on the Mount as to be identified with it by Lk. The sermon in Luke is, therefore, a compound of the reports of two similar but different discourses; and in this compound the elements derived from the Logia are dominated by those derived from the independent document (Expositor for April 1891, p. 315). It seems, however, simpler to suppose that Lk. took the whole of his report from the document which contained this very similar, but different sermon. See Paul Feine, Ueber das gegenseit. Verhltniss d. Texte der Bergpredigt bei Matth und Lukas in the jahrb. fr Protest. Theologie, ix. 1.

The following tables will show the parallels between the two Evangelists:-

Between the Two Sermons.

Luk 6:20, Luk 6:21.Mat 5:3, Mat 5:4, Mat 5:6. Luk 6:37, Luk 6:38. Mat 7:1, Mat 7:2.

22, 23. 11, 12. 41, 42. 3-5.

27-30. 39-42. 43-46. 16-21.

31. 7:12. 47-49. 24-27.

32-36. 5:42-48.

Between detached Sayings in Lk. and the Sermon in Mt.

Luk 14:34, Luk 14:35.Mat 5:13.Luk 11:34-36. Mat 6:22-23.

8:16 and 11:33. 15. 16:13. 24.

16:17. 18. 12:22-31. 25-34.

12:58, 59. 25, 26. 11:9-13. 7:7-11.

16:18. 32. 13:24. 13.

11:2-4. 6:9-13. 25-27. 22, 23.

12:33, 34. 19, 21.

Between the Sermon in Lk. and detached Sayings in Mt.

Luk 6:39. Mat 15:14.Luk 6:40. Mat 10:24.

This last saying was frequently uttered. It is recorded twice by Jn. (8:16, 15:20), and the four records seem to refer to four different occasions; besides which we have a similar utterance Luk 22:27.

These tables leave three verses of the sermon in Lk. without a parallel in Mt. (or any other Gospel), viz. the four woes corresponding to the beatitudes, vv. 24-26. The portions of the sermon in Mt. which have no parallel in Lk. amount to forty-one verses, viz. Mat 5:5, Mat 5:7-10, Mat 5:14, Mat 5:16, Mat 5:17, Mat 5:19-24, Mat 5:27-31, Mat 5:33-38, Mat 5:43, 6:Mat 5:1-8, Mat 5:14-18, Mat 5:7:6, Mat 5:14, Mat 5:15.

The plan of both discourses is the same. 1. The qualifications of those who can enter the kingdom (Lk. 20-26; Mat 5:1-12); 2. The duties of those who have entered the kingdom (Lk. 27-45; Mat 5:13-12); 3. The judgments which await the members of the kingdom (Lk. 46-49; Mat 7:13-27). Encouragement, requirement, warning; or invitation, principles, sanction;-these are three gradations which may be traced in these discourses; and, as Stier remarks, the course of all preaching is herein reflected.

There is considerable unanimity as to the spot where the sermon was delivered (Stanley, Sin & Pal. pp. 368, 369, Caspari, Chron. and Geograph. Int. to the L. of C. 108, p. 171; Robinson, Pal. ii. 370, iii. pp. 241, 485; Farrar, L. of C. i. p. 250, and on Luk 6:12; Keim, Jes. of Nas. ii. p. 289). On the other hand, Edersheim asserts that the locality is for many reasons unsunable; but he gives no reasons (L. & T. 1. p. 524; see also Thomson, Land and Book, ii. p. 118).

20-26. The Qualifications necessary for Admission to the Kingdom: the Happiness of those who possess them (20-23), and the Misery of those who possess them not (24-26). This contrast of Blessings and Woes at the beginning of the sermon corresponds with the contrast in the parable with which it ends.

The Beatitudes common to Mt. and Lk. with the corresponding Woes in Lk.

1. , . 1. , . 1. , .

2. , . 3. , . 3. , .

4. , . 2. , . 2. , .

8. .

, . 4. , , . 4. , .

6:20-23. Four Beatitudes; which correspond to the first, second, fourth, and eighth in Mat 5:3-12; those relating to the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers being omitted. In the four that Lk. gives the more spiritual words which occur in Mt. are omitted, and the blessings are assigned to more external conditions. Actual poverty, sorrow, and hunger are declared to be blessed (as being opportunities for the exercise of internal virtues); and this doctrine is emphasized by the corresponding Woes pronounced upon wealth, jollity, and fulness of bread (as being sources of temptation). It is in the last Beatitude that there is least difference between the two. Even in Lk. unpopularity is not declared to be blessed, unless it is for the son of Mans sake; and there is no Woe pronounced upon popularity for the Son of Mans sake. See Hastings, D. B. 1. p. 261.

20. . Lk.s favourite mode of connexion in narrative: see on 5:14 and comp. 8:1, 22, 9:51, etc. With . . comp. 18:13 and Joh 17:1. We must not take with ; Lk. would have Written , and after : contrast 22:65 and Mar 3:29. Mt. has . . The discourse in both cases is addressed to the disciples; there is nothing to indicate that the discourse in Lk. is address mixed multitudes, including unbelieving Jews and heathen. These Beatitudes would not be true, if addressed to them. It is to the faithful Christian that poverty, hunger, sorrow, and unpopularity are real blessings; to others they may be mere sterile suffering. Whereas, even for the heathen, to be poor in spirit and to hunger and thirst after righteousness are blessed things. In Mt. the Beatitudes are in the third person and have a wider sweep.

, This is the common constr, both in LXX and N.T., the reason for the blessedness being expressed by a noun or participle which is the subject of the sentence (Psa 2:12, 40:5, 41:2, 84:5, Psa 2:6, 13, 89:16, etc.); but the reason is sometimes expressed by the relative with a finite verb (Psa 1:1, 32:1, Psa 1:2; Luk 14:15; Jam 1:12), or by (14:14; 1Pe 4:14), or by (Joh 13:17; 1Co 7:40).

. See on 4:18. We have no right to supply from Mt. It is actual poverty that is here meant. Nor is it the meaning that actual poverty makes men poor in spirit. Still less does it mean that in itself poverty is to all men a blessing. There is no Ebionite doctrine here. But to you, My disciples, poverty is a blessing, because it preserves you in your dependence on God, and helps you to be truly His subjects: (Eus.) Some of these disciples had made themselves poor by surrendering all in order to follow Christ. Comp. Psa 72:12, Psa 72:13.

. Yours is the kingdom, not Will be. It is not a promise, as in the next Beatitudes, but the statement of a fact. But the Kingdom is not yet theirs in its fulness; and those elements which are not yet possessed are promised in the Beatitudes which follow.

21. . Those of you who are suffering from actual want in this life. Ye shall have compensation.

. Originally the verb was confined to supplying animals with fodder (), and if used of men implied a brutish kind of feeding (Plato, Rep. 9. p. 586). But in N.T. it is never used of cattle, and when it is used of men it has no degrading associations (9:17; Joh 6:26; Php 4:12; Jam 2:16); not even 15:16, if the word is genuine there, nor 16:21. Comp. (Psa 132:15). In LXX and are used to translate the same Hebrew word, sometimes in the same verse: , (Psa 107:9). Here the filling refers to the spiritual abundance in the Kingdom of God. In all four cases, although the suffering endured is external and literal, yet the compensating blessing is spiritual.

. Mt. has , which empresses the mourning, while implies outward manifestation of grief in loud weeping, just as implied outward expression of mirth in laughter. Though common in LXX, occurs in N.T. only here and ver. 25.

22. . Mark you off from () by a boundary (). It is used both in a good sense (Act 13:2; Rom 1:1; Gal 1:15) and also in a bad, as here. Comp. (Eur. Hec. 940). Excommunication from the congregation as well as from social intercourse is here meant. The usual sentence was for thirty days, during which the excommunicated might not come within four cubits of any one. Comp. Joh 9:22, Joh 12:42, Joh 16:2. Whether there was at this time a more severe form of excommunication is uncertain. Herzog, Pro_2 art. Bann bei den Hebrern; Grotius on Luk 6:22; Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. on Joh 9:22.

. The object to be supplied may be either the preceding (so most English Versions) or the following (Bede, Weiss). Vulg. supplies nothing; and Tyn. and Gen. have simply and rayle without an object Neither AV., nor RV. has you in italics.

. Throw your name contemptuously away, reject it with ignominy, as an evil thing. There is no idea of striking a name off the list as a mark of disgrace, ex albo expungere, a meaning which never has. It is used of hissing an actor off the stage and otherwise dismissing with contempt (Aristoph. Eq. 525; Nub. 1477; Soph. O. C. 631, 636; O. T. 849; Plato, Crito, 46 B). Your name means the name by which you are known as My disciples, as Christians. Christian or Nazarene was a name of bad repute, which it was disgraceful, and even unlawful, to bear, for Christianity was not a religio lictia. For as an epithet of comp. Deu 22:19.

. A vital qualification. The hatred and contempt must be undeserved, and be endured for Christs sake; not merited by ones own misconduct.

23. . Peculiar to Lk. See on 1:41 and comp. Mal 4:2.

. This implies that they are to receive a prophets reward (Mat 10:41), as in this world, so in the next.

For the dat. comp. (ver. 27). In class. Gk. we should have had . Thus, (Hdt. i. 115. 3, iv. 166., 3: comp. Aristoph. Nub. 259; Vesp. 697). In later Gk. the dat. of relation becomes much more common.

. The gen. refers to in ver. 22; the fathers of them who hate and abuse you.

24-26. Four Woes corresponding to the four Beatitudes. There is no evidence that these were not part of the original discourse. Assuming that Mt. and Lk. report the same discourse, Mt. may has omitted them. But they may have been spoken on some other occasion. Schleiermacher and Weiss would have it that they are mere glosses added by Lk. to emphasize and explain the preceding blessings. Cheyne thinks that some of them were suggested to Lk. by Isa 65:13-16. We have no right to assume that no persons were present to whom these words would be applicable. Even if there were none present, yet these Woes might have been uttered as warnings both to those who heard them and to others who would learn them from those who heard. Just as the Beatitudes express the qualifications of those who are to enter the Kingdom, so these show the qualities which exclude men from it. It is possible that some of the spies and adversaries from Juda were among the audience, and thus Jesus warns them of their condition. When the discourse as placed by Mt. was spoken there was less opposition to Christ, and hence no Woes (Pastor Pastorum, p. 256).

24. . Curtius makes an adverbial form of , so that its radical meaning would be more than, beyond (Gr. Etym. 282); but Lft. (Php 3:16) connects it with , in the meaning besides, apart from this, only. For the accusatival form comp. , , clam, coram. It sometimes restricts, sometimes expands, what precedes. It is a favourite word with Lk., in the Gospel as an adv. (ver. 35, 10:11, 14, 20, 11:41, 12:31, 13:33, 17:1, 18:8, 19:27, 22:21, 22, 42, 23:28), in the Acts as a prep. (8:1, 15:28, 27:22). But is the only possible rendering here.

. As a matter of fact the opponents of Christ came mostly from the wealthy classes, like the oppressors of the first Christians (Jam 5:1-6). see Renan, LAntechrist, p. 12; Ewald, Hist. of Israel, 7. p. 451. But the cases of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea show that the rich as such were not excluded from the kingdom.-. Ye have to the full; so that there is nothing more left to have. The poor consolation derived from the riches in which they trusted is all that they get: they have no treasure in heaven. Comp. Mat 6:2, Mat 6:5, Mat 6:16; Phm 1:15; and see Lft. on Php 4:18. This meaning is classical: comp. , . Deissmann, Bible Studies, p. 229, For see on 2:25, and comp. 16:25 of Lazarus.

25. . Sated with the good things of this life, like Dives (Eze 16:49). Grotius compares. the epitaph, . It may be doubted whether the change of word from (ver. 21) indicates that horum plenitudo non meretur nomen satietatis (Beng.): comp. 1:53. In Lat. Vet. and Vulg. we have saturor both here and ver. 21.

. This received a partial and literal fulfilment when Jerusalem was reduced to starvation in the siege: but the reference is rather to the loss of the spiritual food of the Kingdom. Comp. Isa 65:13. Hillel said, The more flesh one hath the more worms, the more treasures the more care, the more maids the more unchastity, the more men-servants the more theft The more law the more life, the more schools the more wisdom, the more counsel the more insight, the more righteousness the more peace.

. Who laugh for joy over your present prosperity, the loss of which will surely come and cause grief. But the worst loss will be that of spiritual joy hereafter (Isa 65:14).

26. . It is the wealthy who are commonly admired and praised by all who hope to win their favour. The praise of worldly men is no guarantee of merit: rather it shows that those who have won it do not rise above the worlds standard (Joh 15:19; Jam 4:4). Plutarch says that Phocion, when his speech was received with universal applause, asked his friends whether he had inadvertently said anything wrong.

. Just as the persecuted disciples are the representatives of the true Prophets, so the wealthy hierarchy whom all men flatter are the representatives of the false (Jer 5:31; comp: 23:17; Isa 30:10; Mic 2:11).

Having stated who can and who cannot enter the Kingdom, Jesus goes on to make known the principles which regulate the Kingdom. See Hastings, D.B. 1. p. 783.

27-45. Requirement: the Duties to be performed by those who are admitted to the Kingdom of God. This forms the main body of the discourse. Lk. omits the greater portion of what is reported in Mt. respecting Christs relation to the Mosaic Law (5:17-19), and His condemnation of existing methods of interpreting it (5:20-48) and of fulfilling it (6:1-18). This discussion of Judaic principles and practices would not have much meaning for Lk.s Gentile readers. The portion of it which he gives is stated without reference to Judaism. The main point in Mt. is the contrast between legal righteousness and true righteousness. In Lk. the main point is that true righteousness is love; but the opposition between formalism and the spirit of love is not urged. The opposition which is here marked is the more universal opposition between the spirit of selfishness and the spirit of love. There is a break in this main portion, which Lk. marks by making a fresh start, , but the second half (39-45) continues the subject of the working of the principle of love.

27. . What is the contrast which this marks? The emphatic position of the seems to show that the contrast is between those on whom the Woes have been pronounced and the faithful hearers now addressed. Others interpret, But, although I have denounced them, I do not allow you to to them: you must love them. There is, however, no indication that the enemies who are to be loved are the wealthy who have just been denounced, and such a limitation of the meaning of enemies cannot be justified: comp. Mat 5:44.

. Who give ear and obey, (Euthym.). It is unnatural to take it literally as meaning My audience, in contrast to the rich who have just been addressed in their absence. Representatives of the rich may have been present among the audience. Schanz interprets who listen with attention.

There is on the whole a double climax in what follows,-the worse the treatment received, the better the return made; but it is not quite exact. One would expect that would be coupled with . This is the first time that Lk. uses the word , which sums up the whole spirit of the Gospel: it is most frequent in the writings of Jn. It should never be forgotten that is a word born within the bosom of revealed religion: it occurs in the Septuagint; but there is no example of its use in any heathen writer whatever (Trench, Syn. xii.). This is not true of and , which are common in class. Grk. But Christianity has ennobled the meaning of both and , with their cognates: , which is scarcely Capable of such advancement, does not occur in N.T. See on 11:42, the only place where occurs in Lk. Deissmann, Bible Studies, p. 198.

. For the combination with comp. 1:71; Psa 18:18, 106:10; and for the fourfold description of enmity comp. ver. 22. In Mat 5:44 we have only enemies and persecutors according to the best texts; and as . (note the acc.) is not genuine there, this is the only passage in which = benefit, do good to: comp. (ver. 26), and contrast Mat 12:12; Mar 7:37; Act 10:33; 1Co 7:37, 1Co 7:38; Php 4:14; Jam 2:8, Jam 2:19; 2Pe 1:19; 3Jn 1:6.- . For the dat. comp. (ver. 23) and (ver. 26). See the expansion of this principle Rom 12:17-21; 1Th 5:15; 1Pe 3:9. Comp. Exo 23:4; Job 21:29; Pro 17:5, Pro 24:17, Pro 25:21. See detached note on the relation of Rom. 12-14 to the Gospels at the end of Rom_13.

28. . In class. Grk. means praise, honour, whether gods or men: comp. 1:64, 2:28; Jam 3:9. The meaning invoke blessings upon is confined to LXX and N.T. (Gen 14:19, Gen 14:22:17, 48:9; Rom 12:14; Act 3:26).

In class. Grk. is followed by a dat. (Hom. Hdt. Xen. Dem.), as in Ep. Jer. 65: but in N.T. by an acc. (Mar 11:21; Jam 3:9); and the interpolation Mat 5:44.-For we might have expected . , and the MSS. here and elsewhere are divided between and (Gal 1:4; Col 1:3; Rom 1:8). But comp. Act 8:15; Heb 13:18; Col 4:3. Win. xlvii. 1, 2, P. 478.

. Aristotle defines as , , (Rhet. 2:2, 3.). It is spiteful treatment.

29, 30. Whereas vv. 27, 28 refer to the active which returns good for evil, these refer rather to the passive , which never retaliates. The four precepts here given are startling. It is impossible for either governments or individuals to keep them. A State which endeavoured to shape its policy in exact accordance with them would soon cease to exist; and if individuals acted in strict obedience to them society would be reduced to anarchy. Violence, robbery, and shameless exaction would be supreme. The inference is that they are not precepts, but illustrations of principles. They are in the form of rules; but as they cannot be kept as rules, we are compelled to 1ook beyond the letter to the spirit which they embody. If Christ had given precepts which could be kept literally, we might easily have rested content with observing the letter, and have never penetrated to the spirit. What is the spirit? Among other things:-that resistance of evil and refusal to part with our property must never tae a personal matter: so far as we are concerned we must be willing to suffer still more and to surrender still more. It is right to withstand and even to punish those who injure us: but in order to correct them and protect society; not because of any personal animus. It is right also to withold our possessions from those who without good reason ask for them; but in order to check idleness and effrontery; not because we are too fond of our posessions to part with them. So far as our personal feeling goes, we ought to ready to offer the other cheek, and to give, without desire of recovery, whatever is demanded or taken from us. Love knows no limits but those which love itself imposes. When love resists or refuses, it is because compliance would be a violation of love, not because it would involve loss or suffering.

29. . A violent blow with the fist seems to be meant rather than a contemptuous slap, for means jaw-bone (Jdg 15:15, Jdg 15:16; Eze 29:4; Mic 5:1; Hos 11:4). In what follows also it is an act of violence that is meant; for in that case the upper and more valuable garment () would be taken first. In Mat 5:40 the spoiler adopts a legal method of spoliation (), and takes the under and less indispensable garment () first. See on 3:2 and comp. Joh 19:23.

Here only do we find c. acc. In clam Grk. c. gen., e g. or (Plato, Gorg. 486 C, 508 D, 527 A). Some times we have (Mat 27:30), which some MSS. read here and 18:13. Comp. Xen. Cyr. v. 4, 5. So also is not common. Comp. (Gen 13:6) and (Xen. Cyr. i. 3, 11, iii. 3. 51). The more usual constr. both in N.T. and class. Grk. is either acc. and inf. (23:2; Act 16:6, Act 24:23) Or acc. of pers. and gen. of thing (Act 27:43). Note that , does not mean simply take, which is , but either take up (5:24, 9:23) take away (19:24, 23:18).

30. There is no in Mat 5:42, and this is one of many passages which illustrate Lk.s fondness for (ver. 17, 7:35, 9:43, 11:4). The has been differently understood. No one is to be excluded, not even ones enemies (Meyer, Weiss). Omni petenti te tribue, non omnia petenti; ut id des, quod dare honeste et juste potes (Aug.). Neither remark is quite right. Our being able to give juste et honeste depends not only on what is asked, but upon who asks it. Some things must not be conceded to any one. Others ought to be given to some petitioners, but not to all. In every case, however, we ought to be willing to part with what may be lawfully given to any. The wish to keep what we have got is not the right motive for refusing.

, . The pres. in all three cases implies continual action, making a practice of it. Continually give, and from him who continues to take away the goods do not continue to ask them again. For in the sense of take as ones own, appropriate, comp. 11:52, 19:21; Mar 15:24. It does not imply that violence is used. But the implies that hitherto asking them back has been usual. The verb is peculiar to Lk. in N.T. (12:20: comp. Wisd. 15:8; Ecclus. 20:15; Hdt. i. 3, 2). Prof. Marshall thinks that we have here another instance of different translation of the same Aramaic, and that Lk.s and Mt.s may represent the same word; also Lk.s and Mt.s . See on 5:21 and 8:15. See Hastings, D.B. 1. p. 68.

31. . The introduces the general principle which covers all these cases: and in short, in a word. How would one wish to be treated oneself if one was an aggressor? How ought one to wish to be treated? But obviously the principle covers a great deal more than the treatment of aggressors and enemies. In Tobit 4:15 we have, Do that to no man which thou hatest; but this purely negative precept, which was common with the Rabbis, falls immeasurably short of the positive command of Christ. Isocrates has , , and the stoics said, Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris; and the same is found in Buddhism. In the , 1:2, and Apost. Const. vii. 2, 1, we have both the positive and the negative form. Cod. D, Iren. (3:12, 14), Cypr. (Test. iii. 119) and other authorities insert the negative form Act 15:29. How inadequate the so-called Rabbinical parallels to the sermon on the Mount are, as collected by Wnsche and others, has been shown by Edersheim (L. & T. 1. p. 531). Note the , even as, precisely as: the conformity is to be exact. For Comp. Mat 7:12; Mar 6:25, Mar 6:9:30, Mar 6:10:35; Joh 17:24, and see on 4:3. The before is omitted by B and some Latin texts. Do likewise occurs only here, 3:11, and 10:37.

32-35. Interested affection is of little account: Christian love is of necessity disinterested; unlike human love, it embraces what is repulsive and repellent.

32. . What kind of thank, or favour, have you? This may be understood either of the gratitude of the persons loved or of the favour of God. The latter is better, and is more clearly expressed by ; (Mat 5:46). Other wise there does not seem to be much point in . For of Divine favour comp. 1:30, 2:40, 2:52; Act 7:46.

. For even; nam etiam. Comp. Mat 8:9; Mar 7:28?, 10:45; Joh 4:45; 1Co 12:14; and see Ellicott on 2Th 3:10; Meyer on 2Co 13:4. Syr-Sin. omits the clause.

33. Here only is found with an acc. after it. It does not occur in profane writers, and elsewhere in N.T. is absolute: vv. 9, 35; Mar 3:4; 1Pe 2:15, 1Pe 2:20, 1Pe 2:3:6, 1Pe 2:17; 3Jn 1:11. But in 1 Pet. and 3 Jn. it is used of doing what is right as opposed to doing what is wrong, whereas it Lk. and Mt. it is used, as in LXX, of helping others as opposed to harming them: Num 10:32; Jud 1:17:13 (Cod. B ); Zep 1:12. Hatch, Bibl. Grk. p. 7; but see Lft. on Clem. Rom. Cor. 2. p. 17.

For Mt. has in the one case and in the other . Of course both publicans and heathen are here used in a moral sense, because of their usual bad character; and Weiss confidently asserts that Lk. is here interpreting, while Mt. gives the actual words used. But it is possible that Mt. writing as a Jew, has given the classes who to Jews were sinners instead of the general term.

34. This third illustration has no parallel in Mt., but see Mat 5:42; and comp. Pro 19:17.

. The texts are divided between this form, , , and . In N.T. is to be preferred to , which is the class. form. The verb means to lend upon interest, whereas indicates a friendly loan; and therefore would include both interest and principal.

. Receive as their due, receive back, or perhaps receive in full; comp, in ver. 24, and see Lft. on Gal 4:5; also Ellicott and Meyer. The phrase . need not mean more than receive equivalent services, but more probably it refers to repayment in full: comp. and .

35. . See on ver. 24. But, when this kind of interested affection has been rejected as worthless, what must be aimed at is this. Note the pres. imperat. throughout: Habitually love, do good, and lend; also that Christ does not change the word , nor intimate that it does not here have its usual meaning of lending on interest.

. The meaning of this famous sayin depends partly upon the reading, whether we read or , 1 but mainly upon the interpretation of . All English Versions previous to RV. adopt the common view that . means hoping for in return, a meaning which is without example, but which is supposed to be justified by the context, or rather by the corrupted context. Thus Field argues: No doubt this use of the word is nowhere else to be met with; but the context is here too strong for philological quibbles (!). If ye lend to them , what thank have ye? Then follows the precept: Lend , which can by no possibility bear any other meaning than (Otium Norv.. 3. p. 40). The argument would be precarious, even if the facts were as stated; but the true reading is ( B L X, Justin), and therefore the whole falls to the ground. The usual meaning of , I give up in despair, makes excellent sense; either despairing of nothing, or despairing of no one (). Despairing of nothing or never despairing may mean either never doubting that God will requite you, or never despairing about your money. The latter meaning is almost identical with despairing of no one, i.e. never doubting that your debtor will pay. But it has been suggested that may be neut. plur., on the authority of Steph. Thesaur. v. col. 962 [3. col. 3645]. If this were correct, the two readings would have the same meaning. On the authority of a single passage in the Anthologia Palatina (ii. 114, p. 325, Brunck), Liddell and Scott give a transitive meaning, causing to despair; but there (of an astrologer who said that a person had only nine months to live) may mean giving him up in despair: comp. Polyb. ii. 54, 7. Therefore we may safely abandon the common interpretation and render giving up nothing in despair or never despairing. Comp. , (Ecclus. 22:21); (27:21); (2 Mac. 9:18), of Antiochus when stricken with an incurable disease. Galen often uses the verb of desperate cases in medicine; see Hobart, p. 118, and Wetst.1

D and many early Latin texts have nihil desperantes. See the valuable note in Wordswoths Vulgate, p. 344. But he thinks it possible that Lk. may have written for on the analogy of for and for .

. In Mat 5:9 peacemakers are called . The moral likeness proves the parentage. Just as in vv. 32, 33 Lk. has the generic where Mt. has the specific and , so here we have is kind towards the unthankful and evil instead of maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust (Mat 5:45). For comp. 1:32, 35, 76.

36, 37. A further development of the principle of Christian love. Having told His disciples to cherish no personal animus against those who injure them, He now warns them against judging others respecting any supposed misconduct. To pose as a general censor morum is unchristian. Censoriousness is a transgression of the royal law of love, and an invasion of the Divine prerogatives. Not only vengeance but judgment belongs to God. And judgment, when it is inevitable, must be charitable (), directed by a desire to acquit rather than to condemn. Comp. 1Co 13:4; Jam 4:11, Jam 4:12. Hillel said, judge not thy neighbour until thou comest into his place (Ewald, Hist. of Israel, 6. P. 27). See on ver. 31.

The loose citations of these two verses by Clement of Rome (i. 13:2) and Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 2:18, P. 476, ed. Potter) are interesting. Both have the words , immediately before , … They represent in Lk., for which Justin has (Try. 96.; Rev 1:15). Comp.ClemHom 3:57. It is probable that Clem. Alex. here quotes Clem. Hom. unconsciously.

38. The transition is easy from charity in judging others to benevolence in general. Comp. ver. 30 and 3:2. God remains in debt to no man. He giveth not by measure (Joh 3:34), nor does He recompense by measure, unless man serves Him by measure. Disciples who serve in the spirit of love make no such calculations, and are amply repaid. We are here assured of this fact in an accumulation of metaphors, which form a climax. They are evidently taken from the measuring of corn, and Bengal is clearly wrong in interpreting of fluids: is conclusive. The asyndeton is impressive.

The form seems to occur nowhere else, excepting as v.l. Joe 2:24. The class. form is .

. Who shall give? Not the persons benefited, but the instruments of Gods bounty. The verb is almost impersonal, there shall be given, . Comp. (12:20) and (12:48). The is the fold formed by a loose garment overhanging a girdle. This was often used as a pocket (Exo 4:6; Pro 6:27; and esp. Psa 79:12; Isa 65:6; Jer 32:18). Comp. Hdt. 6:125, 5; Liv. 21:18, 10; Hor. Sat. 2:3, 172, and other illustrations in Wetst.

. There is no inconsistency, as Weiss states (stimmt immer nicht recht), with what precedes; but he is right in condemning such interpretations as , (Theophyl.) and eadem mensura in genere sed exuberans (Grot.) as evasions. The loving spirit uses no measure in its services; and then God uses no measure in requiting. But the niggardly and grudging servant, who tries to do just the minimum, receives just the minimum in return. In Mar 4:24, Mar 4:25 we have this saying with a different application.

39. The second half of the discourse begins here, and this is marked by a repetition of the introductory . The connexion with what precedes perhaps is, that, before judging others, we must judge ourselves; otherwise we shall be blind leaders of the blind. This saying occurs in quite another connexion Mat 15:14. It may easily have been uttered several times, and it is a common place in literature. We are thus shown the manifold application of Christs sayings, and the versatility of truth. See Wetst. on Mat 15:14. With the exception of Mar 12:12, the phrase is peculiar to Lk. (12:16, 15:3, 18:9, 19:11, 20:19. 21:29).

. Into a pit rather than into the ditch, which all English Versions prior to RV. have both here and Mat 15:14. In Mat 12:11 nearly all have a pit. The word is a doublet of , puteus, and is perhaps connected with . Palestine is full of such things, open wells without walls, unfenced quarries, and the like. For comp. Act 8:31; Joh 16:13; Psa 24:5, 85:11, 118:35; Wisd. 9:11, 10:17.

40. This again is one of Christs frequent sayings. Here the connexion seems to be that disciples will not get nearer to the truth than the teacher does, and therefore teachers must beware of being blind and uninstructed, especially with regard to knowledge of self. In 22:27 and in Joh 13:16 the meaning is that disciples must not set themselves above their master. In Mat 10:24 the point is that disciples must not expect better treatment than their master. So also in Joh 15:20, which was a different occasion.

. The sentence may be taken in various (ways. 1. Every well instructed disciple shall be as his master (AV.). 2. Every disciple, when he has been well instructed, shall be as his master. 3. Every disciple shall be as well instructed as his master (Tyn. Cran.). But Perfectus autem omnis erit, si sit sicut magister ejus (Vulg.), Every one shall be perfect, if he be as his master (Rhem.), Wenn der Junger ist wie sein Meister, so ist er vollkommen (Luth.), is impossible. The meaning is that the disciple will not excel his master; at the best he will only equal him. And, if the master has faults, be disciple will be likely to copy them. Syr-Sin. omits.

For make equip, comp. Mat 4:21; Mar 1:19; 1Th 3:10; Gal 6:1; Heb 10:5, Heb 11:3, Heb 13:21. It is a surgical word, used of setting a bone or joint: for examples see Wetst. on Mat 4:21. There is no in Mat 10:24, Mat 10:25; see on ver. 30.

41, 42. In order to avoid becoming a blind teacher, whose disciples will be no better than oneself, one must, before judging and attempting to correct others, correct oneself. Self-knowledge and self-reform are the necessary preparation of the reformer, without which his work is one of presumption rather than of love.

41. Anything small and dry: in class. Grk. usually in plur. of chips, twigs, bits of wood, etc. Curtius connects it with , a splinter (Grk. Etym. 683); but better with , to dry up. In Gen 8:11 it is used of the olive twig brought by the dove. See Wetst, on Mat 7:3. The is the bearing-beam, main beam, that which receives () the other beams in a roof or floor. It is therefore as necessarily large as a is small.

. Fix thy mind upon. It expresses prolonged attention and observation. Careful consideration of ones own faults must precede attention to those of others. The verb is specially freq. in Lk. (12:24, 27, 20:23; Act 11:6, Act 27:39: comp. Heb 3:1, Heb 3:10:24; Rom 4:19).

42. . With what face can you adopt this tone of smug patronage? In Mat 7:4 the patronizing is wanting.

. For the simple subj. after comp. Mat 27:49; Mar 15:36. Epict. Diss. 1:9, 15, 3:12, 15. In modern Greek it is the regular idiom. Win. 41:4. b, P. 356.-In we have the only instance in Lk. of with a participle: When thou dost not look at, much less anxiously consider (): see small print on 1:20.

The hypocrisy consists in his pretending to be so pained by the presence of trifling evil that he is constrained to endeavour to remove it Comp. 13:15. That he conceals his own sins is not stated; o some extent he is not aware of them. The means then, and not till then; and the is neither imperative nor concessive, but the simple future. When self-reformation has taken place, then it will be possible to see how to reform others. Note the change from to ; not merely look at, but see clearly. In class. Grk. means look fixedly, as in deep thought. Plato notes it as a habit of Socrates (Phdo, 86D).

43. Codex D and some versions omit the , the connexion with the preceding not being observed. The connexion is close. A good Christian cannot but have good results in the work of converting others, and a bad Christian cannot have such, for his bad life will more than counteract his efforts to reclaim others.

The etymological connexion between (carpo, Herbst, harvest) and is by no means certain. But if it is a fact, it has no, place here. The phrase is not classical, but a Hebraism (3:9, 8:8, 13:9; Gen 1:11, Gen 1:12; Psa 107:37). By () is meant (1) what is rotten, putrid, and (2) what is worthless. See Wetst. on Mat 7:18. A rotten tree would produce no fruit; and fishes just caught would not be putrid (Mat 13:48). In both places the secondary meaning is required.

44. The unreformed can no more reform others than thorns and briars can produce figs and grapes. It is by their fruits that each comes to be known (). The identification of the many Hebrew words which denote thorny shrubs is a hopeless task. Neither the originals nor their Greek representatives can be satisfactorily determined (Groser, Trees and Plants of the Bible, p. 172). Elsewhere in N.T. is used of the burning bush (20:37; Act 8:30, Act 8:35; Mar 12:26; Exo 3:2, Exo 3:3, Exo 3:4): in Hom. it is a thorn-bush, bramble (Od. 24:230). The verb is specially used of the vintage (Rev 14:18, Rev 14:19; Lev 19:10, Lev 19:25:5, Lev 19:11; Deu 24:21). Comp. the similar sayings Jam 3:11, Jam 3:12, which are probably echoes of Christs teaching as remembered by the Lords brother.

45. This forms a link with the next section. When men are natural, heart and mouth act in concert. But otherwise the mouth sometimes professes what the heart does not feel.

46-49. The judgments which await the Members of the Kingdom. The Sanction or Warning. Mat 7:13-27. This is sometimes called the Epilogue or the Peroration: but it is not a mere summing up. It sets forth the consequences of following, and the consequences of not following, what has been enjoined.

46. The question here asked may be addressed to all disciples, none of whom are perfect. The inconsistency of calling Him Lord and yet failing in obedience to Him was found even in Apostles. What follows shows that the question applies to the whole of Christian conduct. Of the four parables in the latter half of the sermon, the first two (the blind leading the blind; the mote and the beam) have special reference to the work of correcting others; the third (the good and bad trees) may be either special or general; while the fourth (the wise and foolish builders) is quite general. With comp. 13:25; Mat 25:11, Mat 25:12; Jam 1:22, Jam 1:26.

47. For see small print on 1:66, and for see on 3:7 and Fritzsche on Mat 3:7.

48. He dug and went deep (not a hendiadys for dug deep) and laid a foundation. The whole of this graphic description is peculiar to Lk. Robinson stayed in a new house at Nazareth, the owner of which had dug down for thirty feet in order to build upon rock (Res. in Psa_2. p. 338). The parables in Mt. and Lk. are so far identical that in both the two builders desire to have their houses near a water-course, water in Palestine being very precious. In Mt. they build on different places, the one on the rock and the other on the sand, such as is often found in large level tracts by a dry water-course. Nothing is said about the wise builder digging through the sand till he comes to rock. Each finds what seems to him a good site ready to hand.

A flood, whether from a river or a sea: and hence a flood of troubles and the like. See Jos. Ant. ii. 10, 2 and examples in Wetst. Here only in N.T., and in LXX only Job 40:18 (23).

. Had not strength to. The expression is a favourite one with Lk. (8:43, 13:24, 14:6, 29, 16:3, 20:26; Act 6:10, Act 6:15:10, 19:16, 20, 25:7, 27:16). For Comp. 7:24, 21:26; Act 2:25 fr.Ps. 15:8, 4:31 : freq. in LXX.

. This is certainly the true reading ( B L 33 157, Boh. Syr-Harcl. marg.). The common reading, (A C D X etc.; Latt. Syrr. Goth. Arm.), is obviously taken from Mt. The Ethiopic combines the two readings. Syr-Sin. omits.

49. Lk. gives only the main incident, the river, created by the rain, smiting the house. But Mt. is much more graphic: .

. It fell in, i.e. the whole fell together in a heap: much more expressive than , which some texts (A C) here borrow from Mt.

. To harmonize with . This use of for ruin (so first in Rhem.) seems to be without example. In class. Grk. it is used of bodily fractures or ruptures, and also of clothes; so also in 1Ki 11:30, 1Ki 11:31; 2Ki 2:12. But Amo 6:2 of rents in a building, , Hobart Contrasts the , , , and of Mt. with the , , , and of Lk., and contends that the latter four belong to medical phraseology (PP. 55, 56).

The like in Mt., comes last with emphasis. Divine instruction, intended for building up, must, if neglected, produce disastrous ruin. The (2:34) is fulfilled. The audience are left with the crash of the unreal disciples house sounding in their ears.

Similar Rabbinical sayings are quoted, but as coming from persons who lived after a.d. 100, by which time Christs teaching had filtered into both Jewish and pagan thought. Whosesoever wisdom is above his works, to what is he like? To a tree whose branches are many and its roots few. Then the wind cometh and rooteth it up and turneth it over. And, whosesoever works are above his wisdom, to what is he like? To a tree whose branches are few and its roots many. Though all the winds come upon it, they move it not from its place (Mishna, Pirqe aboth, 3:27.). And again, To whom is he like, that with many merits uniteth great wisdom? To him who first layeth adding, yet and then bricks. Though ever so mighty floods wash round the adding, yet they cannot make it give way. But to whom is he like, who knoweth much and fulfilleth little? To him who layette the foundation with bricks, which am disturbed by the least water (Aboth R. Nathan, 23). See Edersh. L.& T. 1. p. 540; Nicholson on Mat 7:24.

1 ins. A C D A H K M R S U V X D L most cursives, Vulg. Syr-Harcl. Goth. Arm., Epiph. Chrys. Greg-Naz. Arab. Hieron. and perhaps Clam-Alex. om. B L six or seven good cursives, Syrr. Boh. Aeth. That evengelistaria omit is not of much moment, as they often omit notes of time.

D D. Cod. Bezae, sc. vi. Given by Beza to the University Library at Cambridge 1581. Greek and Latin. Contains the whole Gospel.

Tisch. Tischendorf.

WH. Westcott and Hort.

AV. Authorized Version.

RV. Revised Version.

Vulg. Vulgate.

Wic. Wiclif.

Cov. Coverdale.

Rhem. Rheims (or Douay).

Tyn. Tyndale.

Edersh. Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah.

Cod. Sinaiticus, sc. iv. Brought by Tischendorf from the Convent of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai; now at St. Petersburg. Contains the whole Gospel complete.

B B. Cod. Vaticanus, sc. 4. In the Vatican Library certainly since 15331 (Batiffol, La Vaticane de Paul 3, etc., p. 86).

Win. Winer, Grammar of N.T. Greek (the page refers to Moultons edition).

TR. Textus Receptus.

Ign. Ignatius.

Jos. Josephus.

1 Green compares (Jos. Ant. ii. 8, 1) and (ii. 9, 3): and, for the art. before as an abstract or general term, Mat 21:22; Act 1:14; 1Co 7:5 (Gram. of N. T. p. 87).

D. B. Smiths Dictionary of the Bible, 2nd edition.

1 This use of is very common in Lk. (7:11, 8:2, 9:10, 10:39, 21:37, 22:3, 23:33), and still more so in Acts. Not in Mt. Mk. or Jn.

Luth. Luther.

Eus. Eusebius of Csarea

Gen. Geneva.

Beng. Bengel.

Lat. Vet. Vetus Latina.

Euthym. Euthymius Zigabenus.

Trench, Trench, New Testament Synonyms.

C

C. Cod. Ephraemi Rescriptus, sc. 5. In the National Library at Paris. Contains the following portions of the Gospel: 1:2-2:5, 2:42-3:21, 4:25-6:4, 6:37-7:16, or 17, 8:28-12:3, 19:42-20:27, 21:21-22:19, 23:25-24:7, 24:46-53.

These four MSS. are parts of what were once complete Bibles, and are designated by the same letter throughout the LXX and N.T.

A A. Cod. Alexandrinus, sc. v. Once in the Patriarchal Library at Alexandria; sent by Cyril Lucar as a present to Charles 1. in 1628, and now in the British Museum. Complete.

Aug. Augustine.

Iren. Irenus.

Cypr. Cyprian.

Syr Syriac.

Sin. Sinaitic.

1

The external evidence stands thus-

For . A B L R C etc., Latt. syr-Harcl.? Boh.

For . *, Syrr. Tisch. is almost alone among recent editors in preferring ; WH. and RV. place in the margin.

L L. Cod. Regius Parisiensis, sc. viii. National Library at Paris. Contains the whole Gospel.

X X. Cod. Monacensis, sc. ix. In the University Library at Munich. Contains 1:1-37, 2:19-3:38, 4:21-10:37, 11:1-18:43, 20:46-24:53.

Wetst. Wetstein.

1 What mischief the common interpretation (sanctioned by the Vulgate, nikil inde sperantes) has wrought in Europe is strikingly shown by Dllinger (Akademische Vortrge i. pp. 223ff.; Studies in European History, pp. 224 ff.). On the strength of it Popes and councils have repeatedly condemned the taking interest, and Christians were forbidden to take it, money-lending passed into the hands of the Jews, and added greatly to the unnatural detestation in which Jews were held. The paradox that Christians may not take interest has been revived by Ruskin. See Morfill and Charles, Book of the Secrets of Enoch, p. 58.

Clem. Alex. Clement of Alexandria.

Clem. Hom. Clementine Homilies.

Grot. Grotius.

. Cod. Zacynthius Rescriptus, sc. viii. In the Library of the Brit. and For. Bible Soc. in London. Contains 1:1-9, 19-23, 27, 28, 30-32, 36-66, 1:77-2:19, 21, 22, 33-39, 3:5-8, 11-20, 4:1, 2, 6-20, 32-43, 5:17-36, 6:21-7:6, 11-37, 39-47, 8:4-21, 25-35, 43-50, 9:1-28, 32, 33, 35, 9:41-10:18, 21-40, 11:1, 2, 3, 4, 24-30, 31, 32, 33.

Boh. Bohairic.

Harcl. Harclean.

Latt. Latin.

Goth. Gothic.

Arm. Armenian.

Fuente: International Critical Commentary New Testament

the Right Use of the Sabbath

Luk 6:1-11

It was a brave and bold step for Jesus to set Himself against the ritualistic proscriptions of the ruling religious party of His age. How many who had hoped that He would redeem Israel, must have been hurt by what seemed to be ruthless iconoclasm. But there was no hope of the holy thoughts of God ever emerging from the mass of hide-bound rules and regulations with which the Pharisees had covered them, unless the frost of literalism was broken up with a strong hand. Christ was not destroying religion, but freeing it from the formalist. Reality, reality! Be true and real!

The grave question today is, whether, in our revolt from Puritan strictness in observing Sunday, we have not gone to the other extreme. The Church of God will have to stand for Gods day, not only for Gods sake, but for the sake of the masses, who are menaced by a seven-days working week. The Sabbath was made for man; he needs it. If God made it for him, let Gods children preserve it.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Jesus Rebukes Legality — Luk 6:1-11

And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that He went through the corn fields; and His disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath days? And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungred, and they which were with him; how he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the show-bread, and gave also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone? And He said unto them, That the Son of Man is Lord also of the sabbath. And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that He entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a man whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and Pharisees watched Him, whether He would heal on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against Him. But He knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth. Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing; Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it? And looking round about them all, He said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other. And they were filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus- Luk 6:1-11.

We have really two incidents here which took place a week apart. Both have to do with the same general subject; that is, the legalistic attitude of certain of the leaders in Israel in regard to the sabbath, and the manifestations of our Lords grace. These men make a burden of the very thing that God has given them for the comfort and blessing of His people, while that which He commended as of more value than any ordinances was ignored completely. God gave the sabbath to Israel for blessing, and commanded that on that day they should not do any work. But one class of people flaunted the Word of the Lord and went to the fields and their business and used the sacred hours of the sabbath in order to enrich themselves. Then there were the rigid legalists who looked upon the sabbath as though it had more or less to do with the salvation of their souls. If they kept it they would be saved, and, if not, they would be lost, and so they added to the Word of the Lord restrictions without number until it was almost impossible for a man to keep in mind all these rules. It is almost amusing to read the Talmud and note these absurd regulations.

Our Lord disregarded these man-made rules. God made the sabbath to be a delight, a means of joy and gladness and help for His people, not linked with hard and fast rules difficult to observe, that they might obtain merit, but because He knew the need of the human body and mind for rest. Then, too, it was His joy to have His people gather together on that day and worship Him. We today are not under these ancient laws of the sabbath. We read in Col 2:16, Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. We have the Lords Day instead.

The sabbath was a shadow of things to come. Man toiled for six days and rested on the seventh. Men toil on through life until they know Christ and enter into rest in Him. The sabbath is a type of Christ, and of the rest He gives.

New Testament believers are taught to observe the first day of the week out of love, recognizing the fact that God has honored it above every other day in bringing His Son back from the dead on the first day of the week. This is the day that the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. People who spurn the privileges of the Lords Day, think nothing of buying and selling, whether necessary or not, and doing their own pleasure on that day, are wronging their own souls. Many professed Christians make it the one day of the week when they can enjoy a game of golf or go on an excursion, instead of valuing the opportunity to use the day to meet with fellow-believers for worship, prayer, and testimony.

Here we are told that our blessed Lord and His disciples were walking through the corn-fields in the countryside. It means wheat, not corn, as we know it. As they walked through the fields of wheat, His disciples plucked the ears and began to eat, rubbing the kernels out in their hands. According to the law of Moses, one might pluck the corn and eat as he went through the fields, but he was not to put the sickle in it. So the Lord and His disciples availed themselves of this privilege. They were rubbing out the kernels of wheat and eating them, but certain of the legalists, the scribes and the Pharisees, who were watching them, said to the Lord, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath day? Had the Word of God prohibited it? Why did they use this term, not lawful? This was according to tradition. Our Lord answered them by referring to an incident that had occurred many years before. David was fleeing from Saul to escape from his jealous rage. David and they which were with him became an hungred and went to the house of God and asked the priest if he had any bread and he replied that there was none except the showbread. David asked for some of that in order to satisfy his hungry men. The priest complied, and David and his men ate of that bread. Jesus said to them, Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungred, and they which were with him; how he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the showbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone? The point the Lord Jesus was emphasizing is this that man is more important in the eyes of God than any ritual observance. And yet how slow we are to realize this! David and his men were suffering, and Jesus commends the high priest for giving them the showbread. Our God is a lover of men. and He has given to His people ordinances that they might be used as a blessing, and not made into a burden. And He said unto them, That the Son of Man is Lord also of the sabbath. In other words, He was the One who had given the sabbath. These people were finding fault with Him, the Son of Man, the Lord of the sabbath. Here was God manifest in the flesh standing among them, yet they knew Him not.

The second incident was of similar character. And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that He entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a man whose right hand was withered. The one incident occurred outside in the wheat-field and this one in the synagogue. He saw a man with a withered right hand. Jesus always sees the one who is in need. He never overlooks one in distress, always sympathizes with any one who is in trouble. The Sadducees and Pharisees saw this man also. I can imagine they said among themselves, This is the sabbath day, and if He dares to heal that man on the sabbath we can brand Him as a sabbath-breaker. You know when people get taken up with some little religious niceties they can be as cruel as savages. These legalists would rather have left this man in his wretched condition than have him healed on the sabbath. So they watched to see what Jesus would do. He knew their thoughts, of course He did, and that speaks of His Deity. He read their inmost thoughts. He knew all that was running through their minds. And so He turned to the man saying, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. I think I can see that poor fellow standing there with such an expectant expression on his face! Is Jesus going to do something for him? The Pharisees and scribes and priests are all watching Him, and Jesus turns to them, and says, I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? To save life, or destroy it? The legalists did not dare to reply. They stood there with downcast but angry eyes, and then the Lord Jesus said to the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other. In a moment new life and strength came into the hand. One would have thought that the most hard-hearted man there would have shouted praise to God, but instead these zealots were filled with anger. They wanted to get rid of Him, because He had broken their regulations and did not fit in with their legal standards. They did not realize that He was manifesting the love and graciousness of God. So they would have destroyed Him, but nobody could kill Him till the time came for Him to lay down His life on the cross.

Instead of arguing with these men, He left them and went out in the mountain to talk with God, His Father, to commune with Him whose will He had come to do.

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

Luk 6:10

Note:-

I. That spiritual powerlessness, of which the withered hand is a just and appropriate symbol. (1) The organ was a hand-the organ of touch. (2) Not both this man’s hands were withered, but the better and more serviceable of the two. Faith is the spiritual faculty, corresponding to the bodily faculty of touch. (3) It was the design of Nature that the man should use his hand, but disease had thwarted this design. So, in the Fall, the spirit of man sustained a wreck.

II. What Christ requires us to do in order to the removal of this infirmity. He demands exertion and energy on our parts before He will consent to put forth that healing power which alone can recover us from our soul’s infirmity.

E. M. Goulburn, Sermons in the Parish Church of Holywell, p. 313.

References: Luk 6:10.-Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 57. Luk 6:11-18.-Homilist, new series, vol. iv., p. 627.

Luk 11:12

Short devotions a hindrance to prayer.

I. Our Lord’s nights of prayer were not simple exercises of His exceeding spiritual strength; they were also the earnest cleaving of man to God. And if the infirmities of a sinless being drew him so mightily to God, how much more ought the sin that is in us to drive us to the Divine Presence for healing and for strength! The contrast of our weakness with His perfection gives us no discharge from His example; rather, it adds a greater force. It brings out a further and deeper reason which makes the law of prayer to us the very condition of life. If we do not pray we perish. It is no answer to say we are weak and cannot continue in prayer as He. That very weakness is in itself the necessity which forces us to pray.

II. Again, it is said, “It is impossible for those who live an active and busy life to find time for long private devotions.” From the tone in which some people speak one would think that our blessed Master had lived a leisurely and unimpeded life; that He had nothing else to do but to live alone in retirement and solitude, in contemplation and prayer; and this of One whose whole life was toil amid crowds and multitudes, hungry and wayworn, full of calls and interruptions. It were rather true to say that no man’s life was ever yet so broken in upon, and taken from him by labour and care, and the importunity of others, as His; and yet He is to us the perfect Example of devotion. It was the toil of the day that turned His night into a vigil. Alas for the man that is too busy to pray! for he is too busy to be saved.

III. But once more. It may be said, “All this proves too much, for if it prove anything it proves that we ought to give up our natural rest and our night’s sleep, and to break the common habits of a regular life in a way that health and sound discretion would equally forbid.” Is it not true that people who would without a word, travel many nights together for business or amusement, would positively resent the notion of spending even a few hours of Christmas or Easter Eve in prayer and self-examination? However, it is enough for the present purpose to say that whosoever would live a life of prayer, must spend no small part of every day in praying.

H. E. Manning, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 342.

We are not told the exact time or the particular spot where this prayer was made. Of the spot, we know only that it was a mountain; it must have been a mountain near Capernaum. Twice we read of Jesus Christ going out into a wilderness or solitary place to pray, and twice into a mountain.

I. It is clear that the place was selected as helpful. He could not do what He has told us to do, for how could He, who never had a house, “go into His closet, and shut the door”? Therefore He made the mountain His closet, and the rocks shut the door about Him. And there was a grandeur and a fitness when the Incarnate Creator of this world found His secret place in the stillness of the fastnesses of nature. It may not be given to us ever to find the aid of these sublimities, but this is a good rule-Choose for prayer whatever most quiets and most raises the mind.

II. Of the time of Christ’s prayer we only read that it was “in those days,” those Capernaum days. But whenever it was, it was on the eve of the election of the Twelve. The eves of all events are solemn calls to prayer. How many days would have been saved their bitter, bitter regrets, if there had been more praying yesterdays. Life is full of eves. All life is an eve. Few great events have no eve. And we cannot be too thankful to God for those hushes given us for probation. The secret of a happy life-the secret of eternity-is a well-spent eve.

III. Our blessed Lord did not always pray the livelong night. The manner in which the fact is mentioned here shows that it was quite exceptional, and He had the Spirit without measure. The general rule is, Pray according to the condition of your heart. Do not let the prayer strain the thoughts, but let the thoughts determine and regulate the prayer. Pray as you feel drawn in prayer, or, in other words, as the Spirit of God in you leads and dictates. The great thing is to have something really to say to God. Whatever you do, do not pray on for words’ sake, or for length’s sake. You honour God in prayer by saying and leaving, more than by saying and repeating. And be sure that you carry into prayer the principle which you are to carry into conversation, and never talk, either to man or to God Himself, above and beyond your real level.

J. Vaughan, Sermons, 1868, p. 101.

References: Luk 6:12.-W. H. Jellie, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 196; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 798; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 289, vol. vi., p. 270; G. Salmon, Sermons in Trinity College, Dublin, p. 171. Luk 6:12, Luk 6:13.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. vi., p. 129; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 319. Luk 6:12-16.-A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 30. Luk 6:13.-Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 344; H. P. Liddon, Ibid., vol. xxvi., p. 129. Luk 6:13-16.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. x., p. 223; Homilist, 4th series, vol. i., p. 88. Luk 6:13-17.-F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven, p. 97. Luk 6:15.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xi., No. 639. Luk 6:15, Luk 6:16.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. xii., p. 43. Luk 6:17-49.-A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 41; F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven, p. 110.

Luk 6:19

Outward pains and calamities are so many tokens and types of inward and spiritual evils, and Christ curing them by His touch gives us His own sure token of His will and power to cure all the diseases of our souls.

I. Blindness, for example-we perceive at once what evil condition of the heart that represents. “Every one that doeth evil hateth the light,” and shutteth his eyes against it, until at last he loses even the power of seeing. Such was the condition outwardly of the blind man, who sat and begged at the Temple gate, when Jesus passed by and made clay of the spittle, and anointed his eyes with the clay, and bade him wash in the pool of Siloam, and he went and washed and came seeing. In like manner, when heathens, blind and ignorant persons, are wandering in the darkness of this world, our blessed Redeemer applies Himself to their souls by ways which seem to the unbelieving mean and ordinary, as He made clay of the spittle, and anointed the man’s eyes with the clay; and He sends them to the pool of Siloam, the laver of regeneration in baptism, and they receive inward sight, grace to see and to choose their duty.

II. So the sad helplessness, the inward palsy, of habitual and even deadly sin, is to be cured in one way, and in one way only. The man must be brought to Jesus Christ by the charitable prayers and help of kind friends, or Christ of His own mercy must come in His power where the man lies; and he not hindering the gracious work by unbelief, the Lord will say unto him, “Thy sins be forgiven thee: take up thy bed and walk.” He will justify the sinner by His grace, begun in baptism or renewed in penitence, and the sinner forgiven will do the works of one in spiritual health.

III. As, then, oppressed, diseased persons in those days might know that our Lord was really come, by the healing which He bestowed on the bodies of the afflicted, so are we now to assure ourselves more and more that He is our only Saviour, our only way to happiness, by the help and comfort which He is sure to give us, if we draw nearer to Him continually in the keeping of His commandments. As faith was the condition of healing then, so is it the condition of grace now.

Plain Sermons by Contributors to “Tracts for the Times,” vol. viii., p. 262.

Reference: Luk 6:20-49.-W. Hanna, Our Lord’s Life on Earth, p. 161.

Luk 6:26

The Dangers of Praise.

I. It is more than probable that, if men speak well of you, their judgment of you is fallacious; you do not deserve it. “In the like manner did their fathers unto the false prophets.” Men are fallible judges of one another’s real character.

II. However fallacious the popular estimate, it has a direct tendency to carry us along with it. We naturally adopt other men’s judgments, as upon other subjects, so also upon this, our own character.

III. And then follow certain practical consequences, all of them, in a Christian point of view, serious and even disastrous. (1) The first of these is the loss of humility. How can he, of whom all men men speak well, know what true humility is? He may, and he probably will, wear a mask over his pride, for that is a condition of being well spoken of; but the pride itself will be only hidden, not unmoved; and where pride is enthroned, there cannot be the mind meet for God’s kingdom. (2) With the decay of humility comes the loss of watchfulness. If we are not conscious, and painfully conscious, of infirmity and of sinfulness, how can we watch? Why should we watch? (3) And with the loss of humility and the loss of watchfulness comes, as a natural consequence, the loss of strength. Praise is an essentially enfeebling and enervating thing. It relaxes the sinews of the mind as sultry weather those of the body. Praise promotes repose; self-satisfaction first, and as its natural result the intermission of effort. (4) Again, it is an effect of being well spoken of, to make a man covet that approbation, and at last live for it. It is a pleasant thing to be popular; human nature loves it, and finds it very hard either to sit loose to it when gained, or to do anything which may endanger it. (5) The praise of men has a direct tendency to attach us to earth, and make us forget heaven. To be a Christian is to have your heart in heaven, where Christ sitteth. What a distracting effect must the sound of earthly applause have upon one whose ear is attentively listening for the still small voice from heaven!

C. J. Vaughan, Memorials of Harrow Sundays, p. 175.

References: Luk 6:26.-F. W. Aveling, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 4. Luk 6:31.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 260; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 244; J. B. Walton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 43. Luk 6:32, Luk 6:34.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1584.

Luk 6:36-38

The Gospel Teaching.

I. “Be ye merciful, as your Father also is merciful.” And how merciful God is! It is the attribute, the quality, by which He is distinguished. And that mercy of God is proposed for our imitation. Remember that mercy, pity, compassion, a readiness to be appeased, a wish to take a more favourable view of our neighbours’ faults, that this is the teaching of the Master-a teaching enforced by His own example.

II. “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.” Well did our Lord know what was in man when He gave us this commandment. For what is there so common as this very fault of judging and condemning our neighbour? We all are too apt to set up for judges; we all have our eyes too open to see the faults of our neighbour; and we all shut our eyes too close upon our own failings. Be sure that as followers of Jesus Christ, as men who look to Him for guidance as well as for salvation, we are bound to be especially careful, not hastily, not without the strongest cause, to take upon ourselves to be judges and condemners of our brethren.

III. “Give, and it shall be given unto you.” There is the golden rule of God. As you deal by others, so shall you be dealt with by Him. Be kind, be liberal, be ready to make allowance, easy to be appeased, be ready to do good with what means you have, and by this same measure it shall be measured to you again in the day of necessity. “The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.”

R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons, 4th series, p. 1.

I. “Be ye merciful.” These words were spoken to an age in which mercy was poorly esteemed. Among the old Roman virtues mercy held an insignificant place. The gods themselves were unmerciful. Prometheus bound to his rock through centuries bore witness to the implacable resentment of Jews. The savage instinct by which the sick and feeble are left to perish by the wayside, while the strong hurry on unheeding, survived even among the comparatively tender-hearted Hebrews. There was a wounded traveller on many a high road, and priest and Levite preferred to let him perish. Hospitals, infirmaries, homes for the aged and the sick, were undreamed of by the most enlightened statesmanship of the age, the extraordinary efforts which men made to secure the survival of the fittest froze their hearts, and the fittest became themselves the most unworthy. It was the age, too, of slavery. No one can look into the ghastly history of Roman slavery without realising how much Christ’s words have done for men. Every cross set up on the Appian way was the landmark of the decaying civilisation. How strangely such words as these must have sounded to the early Christians even after they were enlightened “Paul, the slave of Jesus Christ,” “Peter a slave and an Apostle!”

II. We sometimes hear it said that our age is too merciful. The reason is, that some who use words loosely confuse mercy with lack of moral fibre. We must be so merciful, that we be not too remiss. The mercy of God has nothing inconsistent with the sternest justice. Mercy in man is not the lazy acquiescence with things as they are, an idle benevolence that finds it comfortable to hold that “whatever is is right.” It demands effort, energy, the concentration of the will. In its highest form it is found only in company with strong matured graces of the Christian life.

III. Few realise the marvellous influence of mercy. It calls out all that is noblest in its object. By giving him new hope it restores his belief in goodness. Nothing can be truly great but gentleness. In its highest form it is the charity which is the bond of perfectness, and which lasts when tongues have ceased, and even prophecies have vanished.

[Original.]

References: Luk 6:36.-H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Life of Duty, vol. i., p. 35; Homiletic Magazine, vol. vi., p. 193. Luk 6:36, Luk 6:37.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iv., p. 225. Luk 6:36-42.-Ibid., vol. ii., p. 348; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 202.

Luk 6:37

Christian Judgment of Others.

I. When we read, “Judge not,” “Condemn not,” I believe we must approach the prohibition with some such thoughts as these: “Judge and condemn I must. I cannot go through life as a good Christian, or as a useful citizen, or as a worthy filler of any of the relations of life, without repeatedly, and even daily, doing both these things. But what my Master commands seems to be: that I should not make this, which is a duty and a necessity, to be my constant habit and propensity. I must judge, true, but I need not always be judging; I must condemn, true, but my judgment must not always come to that result. 1 must judge of all men, at one time or another, but let my judgment, where it is an approving one, issue in confidence, so that I may sympathise with, and love and trust, others-not in an unsatisfactory habit of ever breaking up the grounds of charity, in want of confidence, withholding of sympathy, absence of trust, refusal of love. I must judge, but I may never pre-judge.”

II. How are we to understand the promises by which these commands, “Judge not and condemn not,” are followed? “Ye shall not be judged,” and “Ye shall not be condemned.” Two meanings at once occur to us, both, I believe, included. The first regards the judgment of men, “Ye shall not be judged, if ye judge not others.” Men are accustomed to deal easily with one who deals easily with them. But we should be falling short of our Lord’s intention in both cases were we to stop with this reference. This appears both priori, from its unsatisfactory nature, as furnishing a Christian motive, and by the concluding words of this verse: “Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.” For this same saying occurs in another form at the end of the Lord’s Prayer, in Matt. vi., where Christ says: “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” The persons addressed are Christians-persons justified by faith, and waging the Christian conflict in the power of the spirit. In each case the command is one enjoining a mind or an act suitable to their high calling of God in Christ; the promise is one belonging to God’s covenant in Christ. Everyone who endures in that covenant shall be forgiven; not because he has forgiven others, but because he has appropriated the blood of Jesus Christ by faith, and that blood cleanseth from all sin.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. v., p. 49.

I. How are we to understand these words? Does the Saviour mean that we are to form no opinion whatever about the character and conduct of persons with whom we come into contact? Or that, if we form an opinion, it must always be a favourable one? Obviously not. In the first place, to do so were simply impossible. The same faculty in us which inclines us to approve of a noble deed, inclines us also to disapprove of an ignoble one. We like the one; we dislike the other. Instinctively and gradually, by fine and almost imperceptible accretions, an estimate of our neighbour grows up in our mind, which is most truly and really a judgment which we pass upon him. Our Saviour here means that there can be no legitimate judging of others, except where there has been previously a severe and thorough-going judging of oneself. He means that the only man to form a proper estimate of the conduct of his neighbours is the man who lies humbly before God as a sinner himself; and who, conscious of his own deep need of forgiveness, is continually coming to the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. Such a man will indeed-for he must-form opinions about others. Sometimes he may even be constrained to blame and to rebuke; but when he does so, he will do it with reluctance, and not with satisfaction-with moderation, and not with exaggeration-with love, and not with harshness. Such a spirit would show itself (1) in our putting the best possible construction we can on the behaviour of others; (2) another result would be that we should never dare to pronounce upon the final doom of a fellow-creature.

II. “Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.” God will mete out to us the severity with which we deal with others. Christianity does not forbid us to discern sin in others; nay, it enjoins upon us occasionally to rebuke sin, but always in a tender, loving spirit, and as those who, being conscious of the evil in themselves, desire their brother’s real and lasting benefit. But Christianity also says: “If you take pleasure in condemnation, and condemn others in a censorious and self-exalting spirit, beware of the consequences which you are bringing down upon yourself. You are dictating to God the method in which He shall deal with you at the great day of judgment; you are for giving others justice without mercy, and you shall have justice without mercy yourself.”

G. Calthrop, Words Spoken to My Friends, p. 284.

Reference: Luk 6:37.-H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year, p. 142.

Luk 6:38

This is one of those keen-edged, far-reaching sayings of our Lord’s which make us understand the testimony of the Apostle who knew Him best: “He needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man”-one of those sayings which sum up in a few words the experience of all lives and of many sides of life. Our consciousness witnesses to its truth, and in doing so witnesses to the justice of the world of what has been called God’s “natural government.”

I. It is true as between man and man. Such as we are to others, such in the long-run will others be to us. Generosity calls out generosity; confidence wins confidence; love is answered to by love. We know all this very well, though we sometimes forget it. Men are to us what we are to them. The disposition that hoards, that grudges, that counts up its own rights, and is extreme to mark any omission or slight on the part of another, seals up men’s hearts against itself. “Give, and it shall be given,” even in money; but in things far beyond money-in love, trust, loyalty, hearty and affectionate service.

II. It is true, again, as between ourselves and life. Life, too, is what we make it, deals with us as we deal with it. To the selfish it is as a churl. To the generous it opens its fountains of beauty and happiness. Give your best, and you shall receive its best. Stinted and measured labour, half-hearted devotion, lukewarm interest-what mutilated results, what poor inadequate returns do they always bring, in youth and in age, in work and in play. Lose yourself, forget yourself in healthy work, in true love, in a noble cause, and you will find yourself again in a larger, freer, happier life.

III. Once more, the saying is verified as between ourselves and God, “With what measure ye mete.” Even He is, in a sense, to us what we are to Him. Pray, and your prayers shall be heard. Believe, and God will be real to you. Trust and obey, and you shall know that you have not trusted in vain. Shut yourself up from Him, and He will shut Himself up from you.

E. C. Wickham, Wellington College Sermons, p. 146.

The first word to be said on this subject-and one which must come before the word which we are specially to consider-is “Get.” Fill the basket and the store. The desire of possessing is one of the springs of many a noble character and of many a noble career. It is one of the root principles of the manifold and wonderful activity and enterprise and resource of our industrial life. That principle builds our cities, wings our ships, extends our empire over all the world. A great part of Christian virtue and goodness consists in harmonising this principle with others; but without it nothing could be done. And now comes the second word, “Give.” Begin to give as soon as you begin to get. That, and that only, will prevent the danger of a growing covetousness.

I. The giving should be in some proportion to the income. I do not presume to fix the proportion with arithmetical exactness. There are insuperable difficulties in the way of fixing or naming any numerical proportions for Christian liberality. But we insist on the principle of a fair and just proportion, and on the consequent duty of the individual to turn the principle into practice, and to find out for himself how much his own proportion ought to be.

II. This proportion will never be reached, or, at any rate, will hardly for any long time be continued, except in connection with another principle of far deeper hold and wider sway: the principle that what is left is given top-that all we have belongs to God-that we ourselves are not our own. This principle penetrates to the very centre of our being, and sweeps round the widest circumference of our life. It is becoming more and more evident that the religion of Christ is such that we cannot touch the spirit and essence of it by anything less than wholeness of consecration. But when we give the whole-ourselves, our endowments, our possessions-then the giving of each part in fit time and place cannot be less than a blessedness and a joy.

III. It is also true that we shall never understand really what Christian giving is until we get beyond and above what is called the “duty” of it-to this higher ground, where only the blessedness of it will be felt, and where we shall hear very clearly the Master’s words, standing as we shall do in His nearer presence, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

A. Raleigh, From Dawn to the Perfect Day, p. 204.

References: Luk 6:38.-H. Whitehead, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 19; Church of England Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 89; F. O. Morris, Ibid., vol. xvii., p. 49; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 346; E. H. Abbott, Church of England Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 278. Luk 6:39, Luk 6:40.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi., No. 1248.

Luk 6:40

Life, the School for Eternity.

I. Look at the Great Teacher. Let anyone, that ever has been taught by anyone, say what are the requisites to make pleasant and effective teaching. Even a child will answer, “Two things: a thorough knowledge of his subject, and a power of sympathising with the mind which he is instructing.” What must it be, then, to be taught by omniscience? by Him who can say, of all knowledge, in a sense no other could pretend unto, “I speak that I have seen”? How easy to learn the most difficult thing in the universe, when He makes it like a sunbeam. And yet, all the while, of all the things Jesus knows, there is nothing He knows so well as He knows man-his capability, his weakness, his slowness, his perplexities. So that His omniscience is not greater than His compassion and consideration.

II. From the Master look at the lesson-book. A book with a precept, and an example, and an illustration upon every point: deep principles carried out rightly to their lofty conclusions-close reasoning with exquisite imagery-appeals to the affections always running equal with the convictions of the understanding. Now in this school, where Christ teaches the Bible, it is unnecessary for me to remark that no scholar can ever be greater than his Master.

III. “Every one that is perfect shall be as his master.” The word does not convey equality, but similarity. The reflection is not equal to the original ray, but it is “as it.” The picture is not like the original, but it is “as it.” The inferior intellect is as the loftier mind from which it has taken its tone and sentiments. Therefore the true sense is this: “Every one whom God has furnished”-that is the original word-“shall resemble his master.” As the well-taught pupil takes the colour from his preceptor, so shall you, by little and by little, take the mind of Jesus. You shall see things from the same standpoint. Your thoughts, your ideas, your modes of action, your inner man, shall gradually assimilate to Him. There shall be similarity.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 2nd series, p. 368.

References: Luk 6:40.-Expositor, 1st series, vol. xi., p. 178; C. C. Bartholomew, Sermons Chiefly Practical, p. 231. Luk 6:41.-J. Baines, Sermons, p. 73; J. Keble, Sermons for Sundays after Trinity, part i., p. 118. Luk 6:41, Luk 6:42.-D. Fraser, Metaphors of the Gospels, p. 38. Luk 6:43, Luk 6:44.-Ibid., p. 76. Luk 6:44.-Homilist, vol. vi., p. 361. Luk 6:45.-J. Martineau, Endeavours after the Christian Life, p. 487. Luk 6:46-49.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxix., No. 1702.

Luk 6:47-48

The Fortress Home.

There are here two great periods set before us: one, when the builders are occupied in working, themselves and their work being all in all; the other, when they and their work together are being tested by forces from without, and no additions can be made of importance. It is too late then. You cannot build in a storm.

I. All doing of right and duty in a Christian land is hearing Christ’s words and doing them. Christ’s words have touched everything we do with holy power. Every one of you is playing the part of one or other of the two builders mentioned. You are building your character by thoughts, words, and actions, daily; and the true building is to be a fortress against coming storms. The storm will not come yet, but it shall come in time. But mark this: how strong, how earnest, how uninviting the beginning is! Digging deep, and building underground. What forethought, what labour, what collecting of materials, and for a long time nothing to show for it; nothing above ground, no beauty. Whilst the building without foundations begins at once to make a show, to give shelter, to excite admiration, to please the eye, and to answer every purpose of summer enjoyment.

II. When the flood does come, and beats upon the principles and character formed in earlier years of toil, one feels the rocks, and wonders how all good work has been secretly framed so as to save at last in the hour of need. Nothing honestly done for good ever is lost. It is a stone in the building, and nobody can ever tell beforehand on which stone or stones the flood shall beat most violently. You ought all to be building fortress homes for the coming hour, when there will be no time, when it will be too late to think about protecting yourselves from the flood. Dig deep to find the rock. Be not contented with less; find Christ, be true, build on His truth. It is a glorious thing day by day to become more and more sure that your life is on the rock, your work eternal, to find happiness, rest and peace, the fruit of faithful honest work, to have heard Christ, to have trusted Him, and built your fortress home on Him.

E. Thring, Uppingham Sermons, vol. i., p. 10.

References: Luk 6:47-49.-Expositor, 1st series, vol. ix., p. 90. Luk 6:49.-H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year, p. 91. Luk 7:1-10.-G. Macdonald, Miracles of Our Lord, p. 138; W. Hanna, Our Lord’s Life on Earth, p. 108; T. Birkett Dover, The Ministry of Mercy, p. 47; T. R. Stevenson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 59; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 27. Luk 7:2-9.-C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons, p. 213. Luk 7:3-5.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 751. Luk 7:4-9.-Ibid., vol. iii., p. 90; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x., No. 600. Luk 7:5.-J. C. Galloway, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 40. Luk 7:6.-Expositor, 1st series, vol. iv., p. 31. Luk 7:6-8.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 800. Luk 7:9.-Bishop Moorhouse, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 296. Luk 7:11.-J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit, p. 325. Luk 7:11-15.-A. Mackennal, Christ’s Healing Touch, p. 142; Clerical Library: Expository Sermons on the New Testament, p. 72; A. Macleod, Talking to the Children, p. 81; S. A. Brooke, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 305. Luk 7:11-16.-T. R. Stevenson, Ibid., vol. xvii., p. 197. Luk 7:11-17.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 350; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 153; T. Birkett Dover, The Ministry of Mercy, p. 54; W. Hanna, Our Lord’s Life on Earth, p. 109. 169. 12.-J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 2nd series, p. 319. Luk 7:12-16.-Homilist, vol. v., p. 361. Luk 7:12-17.-G. Macdonald, The Miracles of Our Lord, p. 190.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

CHAPTER 6

1. The Son of Man the Lord of the Sabbath. (Luk 6:1-5)

2. The Man with the Withered Hand Healed. (Luk 6:6-11)

3. The Twelve Apostles Chosen. (Luk 6:12-19)

4. Blessing and Woe. (Luk 6:20-26)

5. Good for Evil. (Luk 6:27-31)

6. Instructions to Disciples. (Luk 6:32-38)

7. Warnings. (Luk 6:39-45.)

Luk 6:1-11

The opening verses of the chapter are nearly alike in the three Gospels. The arrangement in Matthew is different. It is used there to bring out the consummation Of the rejection of the King. (Mat 12:1-8). Then He healed the man with the withered hand. The healing was done in their midst; it was a miracle done before their eyes. How different from the pretended healings of Christian Science and other Cults. They were filled with madness and began their plotting.

Luk 6:12-19

Before He chose the twelve Apostles He spent the whole night in prayer. It was in those days, the days when they were rejecting Him. The refuge of the perfect Man was then in God. He sought His presence and cast Himself upon Him for guidance. The Gospel of Luke has much to say about the prayers of the Lord Jesus. His prayers are the expression of dependence of His perfect humanity. Among the twelve is Judas the traitor. He was called to be an apostle that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. The Lord knew him from the beginning. He was not a believer in the Deity of our Lord; Judas never called Him, Lord. A very old commentary gives the following suggestion: Judas is chosen that the Lord might have an enemy among His attendants, for that man is perfect who has no cause to shrink from observation of a wicked man, conversant with all his ways.–Anselim, who lived from 1033-1109.

Luk 6:20-45

Certain parts of the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew it occupies the most prominent place, for in the Gospel of the King it is the great proclamation He utters in the beginning of His ministry. See the Study pamphlet on Matthew. Luke reports only a part of the great discourse. A comparison will show that Luke gives a number of additions, which are all in line with the purpose of the Gospel. There is no allusion made as in the Gospel of Matthew to the Law, nor is there given in Luke the expansion of the Law. The instructions concerning alms and prayer are likewise omitted. In Lukes Gospel the words are reported which touch upon the wants of the disciples as men, who are in the world. Their separation from the world, their conduct, besides warnings are fully given. In Matthew we read, Be ye therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. Luke changes by divine guidance the word perfect to merciful. The correct rendering is Become ye merciful. The Son of Man came to this earth in mercy to meet man; the disciple is to manifest the same mercy. The word perfect given by Matthew is the larger description; it includes mercifulness, which Luke is led by the Spirit of God to emphasize.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

Chapter 30

The Second Sabbath After The First

There is a phrase used in the opening verse of this sixth chapter of Luke that is found nowhere else in the Bible. It is a phrase which has been the subject of much debate for hundreds of years. The phrase is The second sabbath after the first.

Some of the great theologians of the past tell us that this phrase refers to the sabbath following the cutting of the first sheaf of harvest during the Jews passover week. Others say the phrase refers to the three great sabbaths kept by the Jews every year (The Feast of Passover, The Feast of Pentecost, The Feast of Tabernacles), and that this sabbath was the sabbath kept during the Feast of Pentecost.

Certainly, this phrase refers to a sabbath day commonly known to the Jews living at the time as the second sabbath after the first, or (more literally) the second first sabbath. But who cares which one it was?

What is more important is this: why did God the Holy Spirit inspire and direct Luke to these particular words here? That I am interested in knowing; and the answer is very simple. The Lord of the sabbath had come to fulfil and forever abolish the first, carnal, ceremonial sabbath of the law, that he might establish that blessed, second sabbath of the gospel, that he might forever be the Sabbath Rest of his people. Christ is our Sabbath.

A Deadly Sin

First, the Spirit of God here sets before us a glaring example of a deadly sin. We are told that on a certain sabbath day our Lord Jesus and his disciples walked through the corn fields. As they did, the disciples, being hungry, picked some ears of the grain, rubbed it in their hands, and had a snack.

Immediately, the Pharisees charged the Lords disciples with what they thought was a very serious crime. These men had broken the fourth commandment of the law. They had done work on the sabbath day! However, the deadly sin revealed here is not seen in the action of the disciples, but in the action of the Pharisees.

The most deadly sin of all is the sin of self-righteousness. Our Lord warns us in many ways and repeatedly to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. That leaven which corrupts and destroys everything it touches is self-righteousness and hypocrisy. Self-righteousness and hypocrisy attach great importance to outward things in religion, things other people see, applaud and reward; but it neglects inward, spiritual heart worship.

These Pharisees were sticklers for sabbath keeping, but notorious for covetousness (Luk 16:14). They strained the tiniest gnat from their ceremonial religious cup regarding some things, and swallowed the camel in other matters. They were quick to censor, criticize, and condemn others.

God hates the spirit of the Pharisee! God Almighty hates self-righteousness. Nothing is more abhorrent to him than the stench of self-righteousness (Isa 65:1-5; Luk 18:9-14; Mic 6:6-8; Mat 23:23).

And nothing is more likely to keep a sinner from Christ than self-righteousness (Rom 9:30 to Rom 10:4). Religion without Christ is the most damning thing in this world. Every act, practice, profession and pretence of religion without Christ is eating and drinking damnation to your soul, not discerning the Lords body, not understanding the gospel.

A Defending Saviour

Second, the Lord Jesus Christ is set before us in this passage as a defending Saviour. No sooner did the Pharisees accuse the disciples of evil than the Lord Jesus took up their cause and defended them against their accusers. He answered the cavils of their enemies. He did not leave his followers to answer for and defend themselves. He answered for them and defended them.

What a blessed, encouraging, delightful picture this is of our Saviours unceasing work on our behalf! We read in the Book of God of one who is called the accuser of the brethren, who accuses them day and night (Rev 12:10). He is Satan, the prince of darkness. How often we accommodate our accuser, giving him many grounds for his accusations! How many charges he might justly lay against us! But he, who is our Saviour, ever pleads our cause, both in heaven and on earth, and defends us. Christ is our Rock, our Salvation, our Refuge, our Defence and our Defender (1Jn 2:1-2; Rom 8:28-35).

When my adversary, the devil, accuses me of some evil by the lips of a man on earth, I respond, Let Christ answer for me. When the fiend of hell accuses me of horrid evils in my own mind and conscience, as he often does, I respond, Let Christ answer for me. In the day of judgment should that wicked one be allowed to appear, point his accusing finger, and attempt to have my crimes charged against me, I will yet respond, Let Christ answer for me.

A Delightful Sabbath

Third, the Spirit of God points us to a delightful sabbath. I read one commentators explanation of this passage, and could hardly believe what he put on paper. I knew he was inclined toward legality; but I was still surprised by what he wrote. As he attempted to protect sabbath observance, he said, We must not interpret the Lords words in this passage as an indication that the fourth commandment is no longer to bind Christians.

The Lord Jesus Christ did not come here to bind his people with the rigours of legal bondage. He came here to set his people free. He who is our Saviour is both the Lord of the sabbath and our Sabbath (Luk 6:5). The Word of God speaks clearly.

Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth (Rom 10:4).

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ (Col 2:16-17).

Christ, as the Lord of the sabbath, is the one who established it. He is the one for whom it was established. He is the one to whom it pointed, the one typified by it. Christ is the one who fulfilled it. Having fulfilled it, he abolished it forever (Rom 10:4; Col 2:16-17).

We rejoice to keep the gospel sabbath of faith; but the pretentious practice of observing a carnal, legal sabbath day is specifically prohibited in Col 2:16. We keep that which is here called, the second Sabbath after the first, the blessed sabbath of rest in Christ. Coming to him, we cease from our own works and rest in him (Mat 11:28-30; Heb 4:9-11). The penalty of not keeping this sabbath is death, eternal death. That is the penalty God places upon all the works men do for salvation (Joh 3:36).

I heard the voice of Jesus say,

Come unto me and rest;

Lay down, thou weary one lay down,

Thy head upon my breast.

I came to Jesus as I was,

Weary, and worn, and sad;

I found in him a resting place,

And he has made me glad!

Horatius Bonar

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

the second: Exo 12:15, Lev 23:7, Lev 23:10, Lev 23:11, Lev 23:15, Deu 16:9

that: Mat 12:1-8, Mar 2:23-28

and his: Deu 23:25

Reciprocal: Joh 9:14 – General

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

AS WE OPEN this chapter, we see the Pharisees and scribes attempting to confine the actions of the disciples, and then also the gracious power of the Lord, within the limits of the Jewish sabbath, as they were accustomed to enforce it. This illustrates His teaching at the close of chapter 5, and in result the bottle of the Jewish sabbath burst, and grace flows forth in spite of them.

The words, The second sabbath after the first, refer we believe to Lev 23:9-14, and are intended to show us that the wave-sheaf had already been offered, and hence there was no objection to the action of the disciples except the Pharisees own strict enforcement of the sabbath. The Lords answer to their objection was twofold: first, His position; second, His Person.

His position was analagous to that of David when he went into the house of God and took the shewbread. David was Gods anointed king and yet rejected, and it was not the mind of God that His anointed with his followers should starve in order to uphold small technicalities of the law. The whole system of Israel was out of course by the refusal of the king, and it was no time for concentrating upon the smaller details of the law. So here, the Pharisees were concerned about trivialities whilst rejecting the Christ.

Verse Luk 6:5 emphasizes His Person. Man, as originally created, was made lord over the earthly creation. The Son of Man is Lord over a far wider sphere. He was not bound by the sabbath, the sabbath was at His disposal. Who then is this Son of Man? That was what the Pharisees did not know, but the Lord indicated His greatness by this claim which He made.

The incident concerning the man with the withered hand follows in verses Luk 6:6-11. Here again the sabbath question came up, and the Pharisees would have pushed their technical objections to the length of forbidding the exercise of mercy on that day. Here we see, not the assertion of the Lords position, nor of His Person, but of His power. He had power to heal in grace, and that power He exercised whether they liked it or not. He accepted their challenge, and making the man stand forth in the midst, He healed him in the most public way possible. The lords of the Philistines attempted to tie the hands of Samson with seven green withs, but they tried in vain. The lords of Israel were trying to make cords from the law of the sabbath, wherewith to tie the gracious hands of Jesus, and they also tried in vain.

Failing to do it, they were filled with madness, and they began to plot His death. In the face of their rising hatred Jesus retired into the solitude of communion with God. In the last chapter we saw Him retiring for prayer when multitudes thronged Him and success seemed to be His. He does just the same when dark clouds of opposition seem to surround Him. In all circumstances prayer was the resource of the perfect Man.

It is significant further that what followed this night of prayer was the selection of the twelve men who were to be sent forth as Apostles. Amongst the twelve was Judas Iscariot, and why he should have been included appears to us mysterious. The Lord chose him however, and thus his selection was right. No mistake was made after that night of prayer.

From verse Luk 6:17 to the end of the chapter we get a record of the instruction which He gave to His disciples, and especially to these twelve men. We may give a general summary of His utterances by saying that He instructed them as to the character that would be produced in them by the grace of God that He was making known. The discourse much resembles the Sermon on the Mount of Mat 5:1-48; Mat 6:1-34; Mat 7:1-29, but the occasion appears to have been different. No doubt the Lord again and again said very similar things to varying crowds of people.

On this occasion the Lord addressed His disciples personally. In Matthew He described a certain class, and says that theirs is the kingdom. Here He says, yours is the kingdom, identifying that class with the disciples. His disciples were the poor, the hungry, the weepers, those hated and reproached. A description such as this shows that already He was treating His own rejection as a certainty, and the succeeding verses (24-26) show that He was dividing the people into two classes. There were those identified with Himself, sharing His sorrows, and those who were of the world and sharing its transient joys. Upon the head of the one class He called down a blessing: upon the head of the other a woe. This of course involved a tremendous paradox. The sad and rejected are the blessed: the glad and the popular are under judgment. But the one follow in the footsteps of the Son of Man and suffer for His sake: the other follow in the way of the false prophets.

Having thus pronounced a blessing upon His disciples, He gives them instructions which, if carried out, would mean that they reflected His own spirit of grace. He does not actually send them for the moment, but He instructs them in view of their going out to represent Him and to serve His interests. The spirit of grace is specially marked in verses Luk 6:27-38. The love that can go forth and even embrace an enemy is not human but Divine; whereas any sinner can love the one who loves him. The disciple of Jesus is to be a lover, a blesser, a giver; and on the other hand he is not to be one who judges and condemns. This does not mean that a disciple is to have no powers of sound judgment and discrimination, but it does mean that he is not to be characterized by the censorious spirit that is quick to impute wrong motives and thus judge other people.

These instructions were exactly fitted to those who were called to follow Christ during His sojourn upon earth. The spirit of them equally applies to those called to follow Him during His absence in heaven. This is the day of grace, in which the Gospel of grace is being preached, and it is therefore of the utmost importance that we should be marked by the spirit of grace. How often, alas, has our conduct belied the cause with which we are identified. A great deal of gracious preaching can be totally nullified by a little ungracious practising on the part of the preacher or his friends. By the manifestation of love we prove ourselves to be the true children of God-the God who is kind to the unthankful and to the evil.

It is not so easy to discern the sequence of the teaching contained in verses Luk 6:39-49, but a sequence there undoubtedly is. These disciples were to be sent forth as apostles before long, so they must be seeing persons themselves. If they were to be seeing they must be taught; and for that they must take the humble place at the feet of their Master. They were not above Him: He was above them, and the goal set before them was to be like Him. He was perfection, and when their college course was completed they would be as He is.

That this might be so, a spirit of self-judgment is to be cultivated. Our natural tendency is to judge others and perceive their smallest faults. If we judge ourselves we may discover some very substantial faults. And faith fully judging ourselves we may be able eventually to help others.

From verse Luk 6:43 the outward profession of discipleship is contemplated. The Lord may have had such an one as Judas specially in view, in speaking thus. Amongst those who took the place of being His disciples there might be found an evil man, as well as a good man. They are to be discerned by their fruits, seen in both speech and action. Nature is revealed in fruit. We cannot penetrate the secrets of nature either in a tree or in a man, but we can easily and correctly deduce the nature from the fruit.

This leads to the consideration that mere profession counts for nothing. Men may repeatedly call Jesus their Lord, but if there is no obedience to

His word, there is no discipleship that He acknowledges. The kind of foundation that cannot be shaken under the testings is only laid by obedience. The mere hearing of His word apart from obedience may erect an edifice which looks like the real thing; but it means disaster in the day of testing.

Let us all bring ourselves under the searching power of this word. The truest believer needs to face it, and not one of us can escape it. It applies to the whole circle of truth. Nothing is really and solidly ours until we yield to it the obedience of faith-not only the assent of faith, but the OBEDIENCE of faith. Then, and only then, we become established in it, in such a way that we are founded upon a rock.

These words of our Lord uncover for us, without a doubt, the secret of many a tragic collapse as regards their testimony, on the part of true believers; as also collapse and abandonment of the profession of discipleship on the part of those who have taken it up without any reality.

Reality is that, which above all things, the Lord must have.

Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary

1

Second sabbath after the first has something to do with the relation between the religious and the civil year. It does not have much significance to us with such a translation, and most versions give it simply as “on a sabbath.” For comments on taking this corn see those at Mat 12:1.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.

[On the second sabbath after the first.] I have spoken to this already in notes upon Matthew 12: let me add a few things in this place.

It is a controversy amongst the Jewish doctors and the Baithuseans, about the exposition of those words that concern the offering of the sheaf of the first-fruits; On the morrow of the sabbath; Lev 23:10-11.

Gloss: “The Baithuseans desired that the first day of the Passover should be on the sabbath, that the offering of the sheaf might fall on the first day of the week: and that the feast of Pentecost might also fall on the first day of the week. For they interpreted those words, The priest shall wave the sheaf on the morrow of the sabbath; as if the sense of them were, On the morrow of the sabbath of the creation.”

Against this the Rabbins dispute with one consent, and indeed truly enough, affirming, that by the morrow after the sabbath must be understood the morrow after a sabbatical day; or after the first day of the feast. So the Targumist, Siphra; Solomon, Menahem, etc. So also the Greek version. We may see their arguments in Siphra; andPesikta; and Menacoth; folio 65. 1. The principal argument is that of Rabban Jochanan disputing with a Baithusean in the place last quoted: “One scripture (saith he) saith, You shall number fifty days” (that is, from the day wherein you offer your sheaf unto Pentecost), Lev 23:16. “Another scripture saith, Ye shall count seven sabbaths, Lev 23:14; Deu 16:9. This, if the first day of the feast happen on the sabbath: that, if the first day of the feast happen in the middle of the week.

His meaning is this: If the first day of the seven-day’s feast of the Passover happen on the sabbath, then the sheaf being offered the next day after, the feast of Pentecost will fall on the next day after the seventh sabbath. But if that first day happen in the middle of the week, then, from the offering of the sheaf the next day, we must not count seven sabbaths but fifty days.

For instance, suppose we the lamb eaten on the third day of the Jewish week, which with us is Tuesday, Wednesday was the first day of the feast; and on Thursday the sheaf was offered; then on Thursday again, accounting fifty days, is the feast of Pentecost. Here seven sabbaths come between, and four days after the last sabbath, before the Pentecost. Where numbering by sabbaths shortens the space of time; but numbering by fifty days fixes the matter beyond scruple. And at once it concludes these two things: I. That the offering of the sheaf was not restrained to the next day after the sabbath, but to the day after the sabbatical day, viz. the first day of the feast. II. That the day of Pentecost was not restrained to the first day of the week, as the Baithuseans would have it, but might fall on any day of the week.

What should be the Baithuseans’ reason why they so earnestly contended to reduce the day of Pentecost always to the morrow after the sabbath, or the first day of the week, is not easy to comprehend. Perhaps he that disputes the matter with Rabban Jochanan gives some hint of it, when he tells us, “Our master Moses loved Israel, and knowing that the feast of Pentecost should be but for one day; did therefore appoint it on the morrow after the sabbath, that Israel might rejoice two days together.”

Whatever the reason was, it is certain they misunderstood that phrase as to the offering the sheaf the morrow after the sabbath; when it was to be understood of the morrow after a sabbatical day. And so the Greek version, and he shall offer the sheaf before the Lord to be accepted for you, on the morrow after the first day of the feast.

Let us take an instance of this in the last Passover our Saviour kept.

The paschal lamb was eaten on the fifth day of the week, our Thursday; the first day of the feast was the sixth day of the week, our Friday, the day on which our Lord was crucified. The day declining towards night (about the time that our Lord was buried), they went out that were deputed by the Sanhedrim to reap the sheaf: and on the morrow, that was their sabbath, whiles our Saviour slept in the grave, they offered that sheaf. That day therefore was the second day, and from thence they counted the weeks to Pentecost. And the sabbaths that came between took their name from that second day. The first sabbath after that was the first sabbath after the second day; and the next sabbath after that was the second sabbath after the second day; and so of the rest.

“The first day of the Passover is called the sabbath; and they counted after that seven sabbaths that had relation to that.” Note that, that had relation or alliance.

Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels

WE should notice, in this passage, what excessive importance hypocrites attach to trifles. We are told that on a certain Sabbath day our Lord was passing “through the cornfields.” His disciples, as they followed Him, “plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.” At once the hypocritical Pharisees found fault, and charged them with committing a sin. They said, “Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath days?” The mere act of plucking the ears of corn of course they did not find fault with. It was an action sanctioned by the Mosaic law. (Deu 23:25.) The supposed fault with which they charged the disciples, was the breach of the fourth commandment. They had done work on the Sabbath, by taking and eating a handful of food.

This exaggerated zeal of the Pharisees about the Sabbath, we must remember, did not extend to other plain commandments of God. It is evident from many expressions in the Gospels, that these very men, who pretended such strictness on one little point, were more than lax and indifferent about other points of infinitely greater importance. While they stretched the commandment about the Sabbath beyond its true meaning, they openly trampled on the tenth commandment, and were notorious for covetousness. (Luk 16:14.) But this is precisely the character of the hypocrite. To use our Lord’s illustration, in some things he makes ado about straining out of his cup a gnat, while in other things he can swallow a camel. (Mat 23:24.)

It is a bad symptom of any man’s state of soul, when he begins to put the second things in religion in the first place, and the first things in the second, or the things ordained by man above the things ordained by God. Let us beware of falling into this state of mind. There is something sadly wrong in our spiritual condition, when the only thing we look at in others is their outward Christianity, and the principal question we ask is, whether they worship in our communion, and use our ceremonial, and serve God in our way.-Do they repent of sin? Do they believe on Christ? Are they living holy lives? These are the chief points to which our attention ought to be directed. The moment we begin to place anything in religion before these things, we are in danger of becoming as thorough Pharisees as the accusers of the disciples.

We should notice, secondly, in this passage, how graciously our Lord Jesus Christ pleaded the cause of His disciples, and defended them against their accusers. We are told that He answered the cavils of the Pharisees with arguments by which they were silenced, if not convinced. He did not leave His disciples to fight their battle alone. He came to their rescue, and spoke for them.

We have in this fact a cheering illustration of the work that Jesus is ever doing on behalf of His people. There is one, we read in the Bible, who is called “the accuser of the brethren, who accuses them day and night,” even Satan, the prince of this world. (Rev 12:10.) How many grounds of accusation we give him, by reason of our infirmity! How many charges he may justly lay against us before God! But let us thank God that believers “have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,” who is ever maintaining the cause of His people in heaven, and continually making intercession for them. Let us take comfort in this cheering thought. Let us daily rest our souls on the recollection of our great Friend in heaven. Let our morning and evening prayer continually be, “Answer for me, answer for me, O Lord my God.”

We should notice, lastly, in these verses, the clear light which our Lord Jesus Christ throws on the real requirements of the fourth commandment. He tells the hypocritical Pharisees, who pretended to such strictness in their observance of the Sabbath, that the Sabbath was never intended to prevent works of necessity. He reminds them how David himself, when suffering from hunger, took and ate that shew bread, which ought only to be eaten by the priests, and how the act was evidently allowed of God, because it was an act of necessity. And He argues from David’s case, that He who permitted His own temple rules to be infringed, in cases of necessity, would doubtless allow work to be done on His own Sabbath days, when it was work for which there was really a need.

We should weigh carefully the nature of our Lord Jesus Christ’s teaching about the observance of the Sabbath, both here and in other places. We must not allow ourselves to be carried away by the common notion that the Sabbath is a mere Jewish ordinance, and that it was abolished and done away by Christ. There is not a single passage of the Gospels which proves this. In every case where we find our Lord speaking upon it, He speaks against the false views of it, which were taught by the Pharisees, but not against the day itself. He cleanses and purifies the fourth commandment from the man-made additions by which the Jews had defiled it, but never declares that it was not to bind Christians. He shows that the seventh day’s rest was not meant to prevent works of necessity and mercy, but He says nothing to imply that it was to pass away, as a part of the ceremonial law.

We live in days when anything like strict Sabbath observance is loudly denounced, in some quarters, as a remnant of Jewish superstition. We are boldly told by some persons, that to keep the Sabbath holy is legal, and that to enforce the fourth commandment on Christians, is going back to bondage. Let it suffice us to remember, when we hear such things, that assertions are not proofs, and that vague talk like this has no confirmation in the word of God. Let us settle it in our minds, that the fourth commandment has never been repealed by Christ, and that we have no more right to break the Sabbath day, under the Gospel, than we have to murder and to steal.

The architect who repairs a building, and restores it to its proper use, is not the destroyer of it, but the preserver. The Savior who redeemed the Sabbath from Jewish traditions, and so frequently explained its true meaning, ought never to be regarded as the enemy of the fourth commandment. On the contrary, He has “magnified it, and made it honorable.”

Let us cling to our Sabbath, as the best safeguard of our Country’s religion. Let us defend it against the assaults of ignorant and mistaken men, who would fain turn the day of God into a day of business and pleasure. Above all, let us each strive to keep the day holy ourselves. Much of our spiritual prosperity depends, under God, on the manner in which we employ our Sundays.

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Notes-

v1.-[Second Sabbath after the first.] The meaning of this expression has entirely puzzled all commentators. It is nowhere used in Scripture, excepting in this place. All explanations of it are nothing better than conjectures. Cornelius Lapide gives a summary of these conjectures, which, if it proves nothing else, is a clear proof that there is no such thing as “unanimous consent of the Fathers” in the interpretation of Scripture. Be mentions, among other things, that Jerome once asked Gregory Nazianzen what this Sabbath was, and received for answer, that he would teach him in church when it would be impossible to contradict him.

Some think that this second-first Sabbath (for so the Greek expression would be translated more correctly) was the Pentecost Sabbath. They suppose that the Jews had three principal Sabbath days in the year,-the first at the Feast of the Passover, the second at the Feast of Pentecost, and the third at the Feast of Tabernacles. And they consider that the Sabbath here mentioned is the “second great Sabbath,” or Pentecost Sabbath.

Some think that this second-first Sabbath, was the first Sabbath after the second day of unleavened bread in the Jewish Passover week. This second day in the passover week was the day when the first ripe sheaf of barley was waved by the priest before the Lord, to consecrate the harvest. (Lev 23:10-12.) The Sabbath here spoken of would then be the first Sabbath after the first sheaf of harvest had been cut.

I offer no opinion on the difficulty. It is probably one that will never be settled till the Lord comes. If the ears of corn which the disciples plucked were wheat, the first explanation seems most probable. If, on the other hand, they were barley, the second seems most likely to be correct. The question, happily, is one which affects no point of doctrine, and may safely be left alone.

v3.-[What David did.] Here, as in other places, let us not fail to observe how our Lord refers to things recorded in Old Testament Scriptures, as well-attested and acknowledged historical facts. The infidel notion, that the Old Testament narratives are nothing better than amusing fables, and fictions invented to convey useful lessons, is a notion that finds no foot-hold, or countenance in the New Testament. He that strikes at the authority of the Old Testament, will find at last, whether he means it or not, that he is striking also at the authority of the New.

[When himself was an hungered.] This is an expression which should be carefully noted in considering passages like that now before us, in which our Lord teaches the true spirit of Sabbath observance. The case of positive necessity, it should be observed, is carefully shown, it was a case of “hunger.” This, and this only, justified the departure from a divine law. In this spirit we ought to consider the often mooted question, what may and what may not be done on the Christian Sunday. When Sunday is deliberately made a day for doing secular things which need not necessarily be done on Sunday, and might easily have been done before Sunday, there is an open breach of the fourth commandment. Neither here, nor elsewhere, does our Lord Jesus Christ sanction such use of the Sunday. The works that He sanctions, are works of necessity and mercy, not of money-making, business, pleasure-seeking, and amusement.

v5.-[The Son of man…Lord of the Sabbath.] The meaning of this expression has been already fully considered in my note on Mark. At present it may suffice to say, that I consider “the Son of man” to mean what the expression always means in the New Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.-The words “Lord of the Sabbath,” were not meant to imply that our Lord, by virtue of His divine authority, would alter, abrogate, or let down the law of the fourth commandment. They mean that Jesus is “Lord of the Sabbath,” to deliver it from Jewish traditions, to protect it from superstitious views of its observance, and to show the true spirit and manner in which it was always intended to be kept.

Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Luk 6:1. On a sabbath. The common reading second-first, has good support; but is omitted in the oldest and best manuscripts. It is probable that this unusual phrase arose from the putting together of two Greek words (second.. first), which had been written in the margin to distinguish this Sabbath respectively from that mentioned in Luk 4:31, and that in Luk 6:6. Many, however, think the singularity of the phrase led to the omission. If Luke did use it, the meaning must have been one known to Theophilus. Explanations of the common reading: (1) That it meant a feast day immediately following the Sabbath (but thus the controversy about Sabbath observance loses much of its point); (2) a Sabbath preceded by a feast day; (3) the first day of unleavened bread; the Sabbath following the second day of the Passover, from which the seven weeks to Pentecost were reckoned (the usual view); (4) the first Sabbath of the second month; (5) the first Sabbath of the second year in the circle of seven years. This would fix the date as the first Sabbath in the month Nisan, U.C. 782. All these explanations assume that Theophilus was acquainted with a technical term in the Jewish Church year, which is not found anywhere else. (6) That Luke had already told of two Sabbaths (Luk 4:16; Luk 4:31), and as he now begins to tell of two more, he speaks of this as the first of the second pair, i.e., second-first. But what reader would have understood it so at first sight? The grain might be ripe in April, May, or June, so that we cannot thus determine the time of year. The common view makes this the first event after the second Passover, and seeks here a confirmation. But according to Andrews it was two months after that Passover, in the first year of the Galilean ministry.

Rubbing them with their hands. Peculiar to Luke. The form indicates that they rubbed and ate, as they went.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

In the former part of this chapter we find our blessed Saviour defending his disciples from the clamorous accusations of the Pharisees for breaking the sabbath day, because they plucked the ears of corn, and rubbed them in their hands, in order to the satisfying of their hunger.

Where note, 1. The great poverty, the low estate and condition, of Christ’s own disciples in the world. They wanted bread, and were forced to pluck the ears of corn to satisfy their hunger. God may, and sometimes does suffer his dearest children to fall into straits, and to taste of want, for the trial of their faith and dependence upon his power and goodness.

Note, 2. How the hypocritical Pharisees blame this action of the disciples, namely, their plucking off the ears of corn; yet did they not charge them with theft for so doing; because to take in our great necessity so much of our neighbor’s goods as we may reasonably suppose, that, if he were present and knew our circumstances, he would not deny us, is no theft. But it was the servile labor on the sabbath, in gathering the ears of corn which the Pharisees scruple and object against.

Where note, how hypocrites expend their zeal in and about the lesser things of the law, while they neglect the greater; placing all holiness in the observation of outward ceremonies, while they neglect moral duties.

Note, 3. The argument with which our Saviour defends this action of his disciples; it is taken from the example of David: necessity freed him from fault and blame in eating the consecrated bread, which none but the priests might lawfully eat; for in case of necessity, a ceremonial precept must give place to a moral duty. Works of mercy for the preserving our lives, and the better fitting us for sabbath services, are certainly lawful on the sabbath day.

Note, lastly, the argument which our Saviour uses to prove the sabbath’s observation may be dispensed with in a case of absolute necessity, and that is drawn from that authority which Christ, the institutor and Lord of the sabbath, had over it: The Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath; that is, he has authority and power as God and as Mediator, to institute and appoint a sabbath, to alter and change it, to dispense with a breach of it upon a just and great occasion; and consequently, acts of mercy, which tend to fit us for works of piety, not only may, but ought, to be done on the sabbath day.

This action of the disciples being of that nature, is without just cause censured and condemned by the Pharisees; a sort of men who were resolved to cavil at, and quarrel with, whatever our Saviour or his disciples either did or said.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Luk 6:1-5. On the second sabbath after the first The original expression here, , says Dr. Whitby, should have been rendered, In the first sabbath after the second day, namely, of unleavened bread; for, after the first day of the passover, (which was a sabbath, Exo 12:16,) ye shall count unto you (said God) seven sabbaths complete, Lev 23:15, reckoning that day for the first of the week, which was therefore called, , the first sabbath from this second day of unleavened bread; (the 16th of the month;) the second was called , the second sabbath from that day; and the third, , the third sabbath from that second day; and so on, till they came to the seventh sabbath from that day; that is, to the forty-ninth day, which was the day of pentecost. The mention of the seven sabbaths, to be numbered with relation to this second day, answers all that Grotius objects against this exposition. Epiphanius expressly says, Our Lords disciples did what is here recorded, , , on the sabbath following the [second] day of unleavened bread. And if pentecost was called the feast of harvest, Exo 23:16, (as Bochart, Mr. Mede, Dr. Lightfoot, and the Jews say,) because then their barley and wheat harvest was gathered in, this feast could not be pentecost, as Grotius conjectures, because then the corn must have been gathered in, and therefore could not have been plucked by Christs disciples in the field. There are other expositions of the phrase, but this seems by far the most probable. He went through the corn-fields, &c. This paragraph is largely explained in the notes on Mat 12:1-8; and Mar 2:23-28.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

5. A Sabbath Scene: Luk 6:1-5.

The two Sabbath scenes which follow, provoke, at last, the outbreak of the conflict, which, as we have seen, has long been gathering strength. We have already noted several symptoms of the hostility which was beginning to be entertained towards Jesus: Luk 6:14 (for a testimony unto them); Luk 6:21 (he blasphemeth); Luk 6:30-33 (the censure implied in both questions). It is the apparent contempt of Jesus for the ordinance of the Sabbath, which in Luke as well as in John (chap. 5 and 9), alike in Galilee and in Judaea, provokes the outbreak of this latent irritation, and an open rupture between Jesus and the dominant party. Is there not something in this complete parallelism that abundantly compensates for the superficial differences between the synoptical narrative and John’s?

Vers. 1-5.

The term second-first is omitted by the Alex. But this omission is condemned by Tischendorf himself. Matthew and Mark presented nothing at all like it, and they did not know what meaning to give to the word, which is found nowhere else in the whole compass of sacred and profane literature. There are half a score explanations of it. Chrysostom supposed that when two festival and Sabbath days followed each other, the first received the name of second-first: the first of the two. This meaning does not give a natural explanation of the expression.

Wetstein and Storr say that the first Sabbath of the first, second, and third months of the year were called first, second, and third; the second-first Sabbath would thus be the first Sabbath of the second month. This meaning, although not very natural, is less forced.

Scaliger thought that, as they reckoned seven Sabbaths from the 16th Nisan, the second day of the Passover feast, to Pentecost, the second-first Sabbath denoted the first of these seven Sabbaths: the first Sabbath after the second day of the Passover. This explanation, received by De Wette, Neander, and other moderns, agrees very well with the season when the following scene must have taken place. But the term does not correspond naturally with the idea.

Wieseler supposes that the first Sabbath of each of the seven years which formed a Sabbatic cycle was called first, second, third Sabbath: thus the second-first Sabbath would denote the first Sabbath of the second year of the septenary cycle. This explanation has been favourably received by modern exegesis.

It appears to us, however, less probable than that which Louis Cappel was the first to offer: The civil year of the Israelites commencing in autumn, in the month Tizri (about mid-September to mid-October), and the ecclesiastical year in the month Nisan (about mid-March to mid-April), there were thus every year two first Sabbaths: one at the commencement of the civil year, of which the name would have been first-first; the other at the beginning of the religious year, which would be called second-first. This explanation is very simple in itself, and the form of the Greek term favours it: second-first signifies naturally a first doubled or twice over (biss).

But there is yet another explanation which appears to us still more probable. Proposed by Selden, it has been reproduced quite lately by Andreae in his excellent article on the day of Jesus’ death. When the observers entrusted with the duty of ascertaining the appearance of the new moon, with a view to fixing the first day of the month, did not present themselves before the commission of the Sanhedrim assembled to receive their deposition until after the sacrifice, this day was indeed declared the first of the month, or monthly Sabbath ( , first Sabbath); but as the time of offering the sacrifice of the new moon was passed, they sanctified the following day, or second of the month ( , second-first Sabbath), as well. This meaning perfectly agrees with the idea naturally expressed by this term (a first twice over), and with the impression it gives of having been taken from the subtleties of the Jewish calendar.

Bleek, ill-satisfied with these various explanations, supposes an interpolation. But why should it have occurred in Luke rather than in Matthew and Mark? Meyer thinks that a copyist had written in the margin , first, in opposition to , the other (Sabbath), Luk 6:6; that the next copyist, wishing, in consideration of the Sabbath indicated Luk 4:31, to correct this gloss, wrote , second, in place of , first; and that, lastly, from these two glosses together came the word second-first, which has made its way into the text. What a tissue of improbabilities! Holtzmann thinks that Luke had written , the first, dating from the journey recorded in Luk 4:44, and that in consideration of Luk 4:31 some over-careful corrector added the second; whence our reading. But is not the interval which separates our narrative from Luk 4:44 too great for Luke to have employed the word first in reference to this journey? And what object could he have had in expressing so particularly this quality of first? Lastly, how did the gloss of this copyist find its way into such a large number of documents? Weizscker (Unters. p. 59) opposes the two first Sabbaths mentioned in Luk 4:16; Luk 4:33 to the two mentioned here (Luk 6:1; Luk 6:6), and thinks that the name second-first means here the first of the second group. How can any one attribute such absurd trifling to a serious writer! This strange term cannot have been invented by Luke; neither could it have been introduced accidentally by the copyists. Taken evidently from the Jewish vocabulary, it holds its place in Luke, as a witness attesting the originality and antiquity of his sources of information. Further, this precise designation of the Sabbath when the incident took place points to a narrator who witnessed the scene.

From Mark’s expression , to pass by the side of, it would seem to follow that Jesus was passing along the side of, and not, as Luke says, across the field (). But as Mark adds: through the corn, it is clear that he describes two adjacent fields, separated by a path.

The act of the disciples was expressly authorized by the law (Deu 23:25). But it was done on the Sabbath day; there was the grievance. To gather and rub out the ears was to harvest, to grind, to labour! It was an infraction of the thirty-nine articles which the Pharisees had framed into a Sabbatic code. , rubbing out, is designedly put at the end of the phrase: this is the labour!

Meyer, pressing the letter of Mark’s text, , to make a way, maintains that the disciples were not thinking of eating, but simply wanted to make themselves a passage across the field by plucking the ears of corn. According to him, the middle , not the active , would have been necessary for the ordinary sense. He translates, therefore: they cleared a way by plucking () the ears of corn (Mark omits , rubbing them out). He concludes from this that Mark alone has preserved the exact form of the incident, which has been altered in the other two through the influence of the next example, which refers to food. Holtzmann takes advantage of this idea to support the hypothesis of a proto-Mark. But, 1. What traveller would ever think of clearing a passage through a field of wheat by plucking ear after ear? 2. If we were to lay stress on the active , as Meyer does, it would signify that the disciples made a road for the public, and not for themselves alone; for in this case also the middle would be necessary! The ordinary sense is therefore the only one possible even in Mark, and the critical conclusions in favour of the proto-Mark are without foundation.

The Hebraistic form of Luke’s phrase (… ) which is not found in the other two proves that he has a particular document. As to who these accusers were, comp. Luk 5:17-21; Luk 5:30-33.

The word , which the Alex. omits, has perhaps been added on account of the plural that follows: Why do ye…?

It follows from this incident that Jesus passed a spring, and consequently a Passover also, in Galilee before His passion. A remarkable coincidence also with the narrative of John (Joh 6:4).

The illustration taken from 1 Samuel 21 cited in Luk 6:3-4 is very appropriately chosen. Jesus would certainly have had no difficulty in showing that the act of the disciples, although opposed perhaps to the Pharisaic code, was in perfect agreement with the Mosaic commandment. But the discussion, if placed on this ground, might have degenerated into a mere casuistical question; He therefore transfers it to a sphere in which He feels Himself master of the position. The conduct of David rests upon this principle, that in exceptional cases, when a moral obligation clashes with a ceremonial law, the latter ought to yield. And for this reason. The rite is a means, but the moral duty is an end; now, in case of conflict, the end has priority over the means. The absurdity of Pharisaism is just this, that it subordinates the end to the means. It was the duty of the high priest to preserve the life of David and his companions, having regard to their mission, even at the expense of the ritual commandment; for the rite exists for the theocracy, not the theocracy for the rite. Besides, Jesus means to clinch the nail, to show His adversariesand this is the sting of His replythat when it is a question of their own particular advantage (saving a head of cattle for instance), they are ready enough to act in a similar way, sacrificing the rite to what they deem a higher interest (Luk 13:11 et seq.).

De Wette understands in the sense of not even: Do you not even know the history of your great king? This sense would come very near to the somewhat ironical turn of Mark: Have you never read…never once, in the course of your profound biblical studies? But it appears more simple to explain it as Bleek does: Have you not also read…? Does not this fact appear in your Bible as well as the ordinance of the Sabbath? The detail: and to those who were with him, is not distinctly expressed in the O. T.; but whatever Bleek may say, it is implied; David would not have asked for five loaves for himself alone. Jesus mentions it because He wishes to institute a parallel between His apostles and David’s followers.

The pron. does not refer to , as in Matthew (the present does not permit of it), but to , as the object of is therefore taken here in its regular sense. It is not so in Matthew, where is used as in Luk 4:26-27. Mark gives the name of the high priest as Abiathar, while according to 1 Sam. it was Ahimelech, his son (comp. 2Sa 8:17; 1Ch 18:16), or his father (according to Josephus, Antiq. 6.12. 6). The question is obscure.

In Matthew, Jesus gives a second instance of transgression of the Sabbath, the labour of the priests in the temple on the Sabbath day, in connection with the burnt-offerings and other religious services. If the work of God in the temple liberates man from the law of the Sabbath rest, how much more must the service of Him who is Lord even of the temple raise him to the same liberty!

The Cod. D. and one Mn. here add the following narrative: The same day, Jesus, seeing a man who was working on the Sabbath, saith to him: O man, if thou knowest what thou art doing, blessed art thou; but if thou knowest not, thou art cursed, and a transgressor of the law. This narrative is an interpolation similar to that of the story in John of the woman taken in adultery, but with this difference, that the latter is probably the record of a real fact, while the former can only be an invention or a perversion. Nobody could have laboured publicly in Israel on the Sabbath day without being instantly punished; and Jesus, who never permitted Himself the slightest infraction of a true commandment of Moses (whatever interpreters may say about it), certainly would not have authorized this premature emancipation in any one else.

After having treated the question from a legal point of view, Jesus rises to the principle. Even had the apostles broken the Sabbath rest, they would not have sinned; for the Son of man has the disposal of the Sabbath, and they are in His service. We find again here the well-known expression, , and He said to them, the force of which is (see at Luk 6:36): Besides, I have something more important to tell you. The Sabbath, as an educational institution, is only to remain until the moral development of mankind, for the sake of which it was instituted, is accomplished. When this end is attained, the means naturally fall into disuse. Now, this moment is reached in the appearance of the Son of man. The normal representative of the race, He is Himself the realization of this end; He is therefore raised above the Sabbath as a means of education; He may consequently modify the form of it, and even, if He think fit, abolish it altogether.: even of the Sabbath, this peculiar property of Jehovah; with how much greater reason, of all the rest of the law!

How can any one maintain, in the face of such a saying as this, that Jesus only assumed the part of the Messiah after the conversation at Caesarea-Philippi (Luk 9:18), and when moved to do so by Peter?

Mark inserts before this declaration one of those short and weighty sayings (he has preserved several of them), which he cannot have invented or added of his own authority, and which the other two Syn. would never have left out, had they made use of his book or of the document of which he availed himself (the proto-Mark): The Sabbath is made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. God did not create man for the greater glory of the Sabbath, but He ordained the Sabbath for the greater welfare of man. Consequently, whenever the welfare of man and the rest of the Sabbath happen to clash, the Sabbath must yield. So that (, Mar 2:28) the Son of man, inasmuch as He is head of the race, has a right to dispose of this institution. This thought, distinctly expressed in Mark, is just what we have had to supply in order to explain the argument in Luke.

Are we authorized to infer from this saying the immediate abolition of every Sabbatic institution in the Christian Church? By no means. Just as, in His declaration, Luk 6:34-35, Jesus announced not the abolition of fasting, but the substitution of a more spiritual for the legal fast, so this saying respecting the Sabbath foreshadows important modifications of the form of this institution, but not its entire abolition. It will cease to be a slavish observance, as in Judaism, and will become the satisfaction of an inward need. Its complete abolition will come to pass only when redeemed mankind shall all have reached the perfect stature of the Son of man. The principle: The Sabbath is made for man, will retain a certain measure of its force as long as this earthly economy shall endure, for which the Sabbath was first established, and to the nature of which it is so thoroughly fitted.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

XXXVIII.

JESUS DEFENDS DISCIPLES WHO PLUCK GRAIN

ON THE SABBATH.

(Probably while on the way from Jerusalem to Galilee.)

aMATT. XII. 1-8; bMARK II. 23-28; cLUKE VI. 1-5.

b23 And c1 Now it came to pass a1 At that season bthat he aJesus went {bwas going} on the {ca} bsabbath day through the grainfields; aand his disciples were hungry and began bas they went, to pluck the ears. aand to eat, cand his disciples plucked the ears, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. [This lesson fits in chronological order with the last, if the Bethesda events took place at Passover. The paschal lamb was eaten on the fourteenth Nisan, or about the first of April. Clark fixes the exact date as the 29th of March, in A.D. 28, which is the beginning of the harvest season. Barley ripens in the Jordan valley about the 1st of April, but on the uplands it is reaped as late as May. Wheat ripens from one to three weeks later than barley, and upland wheat (and Palestine has many [209] mountain plateaus) is often harvested in June. If Scaliger is right, as most critics think he is, in fixing this sabbath as the first after the Passover, it is probable that it was barley which the disciples ate. Barley bread was and is a common food, and it is common to chew the grains of both it and wheat.] c2 But {b24 And} ccertain of the Pharisees awhen they saw it, said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath. bwhy do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? cWhy do ye that which it is not lawful to do on the sabbath day? [The Pharisees did not object to the act of taking the grain. Such plucking of the grain was allowed by the law ( Deu 23:25) and is still practiced by hungry travelers in Palestine, which is, and has always been, an unfenced land, the roads, or rather narrow paths, of which lead through the grainfields, so that the grain is in easy reach of the passer-by. The Pharisees objected to the plucking of grain because they considered it a kind of reaping, and therefore working on the sabbath day. The scene shows the sinlessness of Jesus in strong light. Every slightest act of his was submitted to a microscopic scrutiny.] a3 But {b25 And} cJesus answering them asaid unto them, Have ye not read {bDid ye never read} ceven this [There is a touch of irony here. The Pharisees prided themselves upon their knowledge of Scriptures, but they had not read (so as to understand them) even its most common incidents], what David did, bwhen he had need, and was hungry, he, and they that were with him? 26 How he entered into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest, cand took and ate the showbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful to eat {awhich it was not lawful for him to eat,} neither for them that were with him, but only {csave} for the priests alone? [Jesus here refers to the incident recorded at 1Sa 21:1-6. Ahimelech and Abiathar have been confused by transcribers. It should read Ahimelech. However, we are not referred to the actions of Abiathar, but to those of [210] David. He went with his followers to the tabernacle at Nob near Jerusalem, and being hungry, asked bread of the priests. There was no bread at hand save the showbread. This bread was called showbread because it was “set out” or “exhibited” before Jehovah. It consisted of twelve loaves, which were baked upon the sabbath, and were placed, hot, in two rows upon the showbread table every sabbath day. The twelve old loaves which were then removed were to be eaten by the priests and no one else ( Lev 24:5-9). It was these twelve old loaves which were given to David ( 1Sa 21:6). Since the showbread was baked on the sabbath, the law itself ordered work on that day. The vast majority of commentators look upon this passage as teaching that necessity abrogates what they are pleased to call the ceremonial laws of God. Disregarding the so-called ceremonial laws of God is a very dangerous business, as is witnessed by the case of Uzzah ( 2Sa 6:6, 2Sa 6:7), and Uzziah ( 2Ch 26:16-23). Christ never did it, and strenuously warned those who followed the example of the scribes and Pharisees in teaching such a doctrine ( Mat 5:17-20). The law of necessity was not urged by him as a justifiable excuse for making bread during the forty days’ fast of the temptation. Life is not higher than law. “All that a man hath will he give for his life,” is Satan’s doctrine, not Christ’s ( Job 2:4). The real meaning, as we understand it, will be developed below in our treatment of Num 28:9), and two lambs were killed on the sabbath in addition to the daily [211] sacrifice. This involved the killing, skinning, and cleaning of the animals, and the building of the fire to consume the sacrifice. They also trimmed the gold lamps, burned incense, and performed various other duties. The profanation of the Sabbath, however, was not real, but merely apparent. Jesus cites this priestly work to prove that the Sabbath prohibition was not universal, and hence might not include what the disciples had done. The fourth commandment did not forbid work absolutely, but labor for worldly gain. Activity in the work of God was both allowed and commanded.] 6 But I say [asserting his own authority] unto you, that one greater than the temple is here. [The word “greater” is in the neuter gender, and the literal meaning is therefore “a greater thing than the temple.” The contrast may be between the service of the temple and the service of Christ, or it may be a contrast between the divinity, sacredness, or divine atmosphere which hallowed the temple, and the divinity or Godhead of Christ. But, however we take it, the meaning is ultimately a contrast between Christ and the temple, similar to the contrast between himself and Solomon, etc. ( Mat 12:41, Mat 12:42). It was a startling saying as it fell on Jewish ears, for to them the temple at Jerusalem was the place honored by the very Shekinah of the unseen God, and the only place of effective worship and atonement. If the temple service justified the priests in working upon the Sabbath day, much more did the service of Jesus, who was not only the God of the temple, but was himself the true temple, of which the other was merely the symbol, justify these disciples in doing that which was not legally, but merely traditionally, unlawful. Jesus here indirectly anticipates the priesthood of his disciples– 1Pe 2:5.] 7 But if ye had known what this meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. [This passage is quoted from Hos 6:6, and is reiterated at Mat 9:13. It is an assertion of the superiority of inward life over outward form, for the form is nothing if the heart is wrong. The saying is first suggested by David himself ( Psa 51:16, Psa 51:17), [212] after which it is stated by Hosea and amplified by Paul ( 1Co 13:3). The quotation has a double reference both to David and the disciples as above indicated. Having given the incident in the life of David, Jesus passes on from it without comment, that he may lay down by another example the principle which justified it. This principle we have just treated, and we may state it thus: A higher law, where it conflicts with a lower one, suspends or limits the lower one at the point of conflict. Thus the higher laws of worship in the temple suspended the lower law of sabbath observance, and thus also the higher law of mercy suspended the lower law as to the showbread when David took it and mercifully gave it to his hungry followers, and when God in mercy permitted this to be done. And thus, had they done what was otherwise unlawful, the disciples would have been justified in eating by the higher law of Christ’s service. And thus also would Christ have been justified in permitting them to eat by the law of mercy, which was superior to that which rendered the seventh day to God as a sacrifice.] 8 For the Son of man is Lord of the sabbath. b27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: 28 so that the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath. [The expression “Son of man” is used eighty-eight times in the New Testament, and always means the Messiah, and not man generally. The Sabbath was made for man’s convenience and blessing, and so Jesus, who was complete and perfect manhood, was Lord of it. But men who were incomplete and imperfect in their manhood, can not trust their fallible judgment to tamper with it. Though the day was made for man, this fact would not entitle man to use it contrary to the laws under which it was granted. As Lord of the day Jesus had a right to interpret it and to apply it, and to substitute the Lord’s day for it. In asserting his Lordship over it, Jesus takes the question outside the range of argument and brings it within the range of authority.] [213]

[FFG 209-213]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

Luke Chapter 6

The circumstances related in chapter 6:1-10 have reference to the same truth, and in an important aspect. The sabbath was the sign of the covenant between Israel and God-rest after finished works. The Pharisees blame the disciples of Christ, because they rub out the ears of corn in their hands. Now a rejected David had overleapt the barrier of the law when his need required it. For when Gods Anointed was rejected and cast out, everything became in a manner common. The Son of man (Son of David, rejected like the son of Jesse, the elect and anointed king) was Lord of the sabbath; God, who established this ordinance, was above the ordinances He had established, and present in grace the obligation of man yielded to the sovereignty of God; and the Son of man was there with the rights and the power of God. Marvellous fact! Moreover the power of God present in grace did not allow misery to exist, because it was the day of grace. But this was setting aside Judaism. That was the obligation of man to God, Christ was the manifestation of God in grace to men. [18]

Availing Himself of the rights of supreme goodness, and displaying a power that authorised His pretension to assert those rights, He heals, in a full synagogue, the man with the withered hand. They are filled with madness at this manifestation of power, which overflows and carries away the dykes of their pride and self-righteousness. We may observe that all these circumstances are gathered together with an order and mutual connection that are perfect. [19] The Lord had shewn that this grace-which had visited Israel according to all that could be expected from the Lord Almighty, faithful to His promises-could, nevertheless, not be confined to the narrow limits of that people, nor be adapted to the ordinances of the law; that men desiredthe old things, but that the power of God acted according to its own nature. He had shewn that the most sacred, the most obligatory, sign of the old covenant, must bow to His title superior to all ordinance, and give place to the rights of His divine love which was in action. But the old thing was thus judged, and passing away. He had shewn Himself in everything-in the calling of Peter especially-to be the new centre, around which all that sought God and blessing must gather; for He was the living manifestation of God and of blessing in men. Thus God was manifested, the old order of things was worn out and unable to contain this grace, and the remnant were separated-around the Lord-from a world that saw no beauty in Him that they should desire Him. He now acted on this basis; and if faith sought Him in Israel, this power of grace manifested God in a new way. God surrounds Himself with men, as the centre of blessing in Christ as man. But He is love, and in the activity of that love He seeks the lost. None but one, and one who was God and revealed Him, could surround Himself with His followers. No prophet ever did (see Joh 1:1-51). None could send out with the authority and power of a divine message but God. Christ had been sent; He now sends. The name of apostle (sent), for He so names them, contains this deep and marvellous truth-God is acting in grace. He surrounds Himself with blessed ones. He seeks miserable sinners. If Christ, the we centre of grace and happiness, surrounds Himself with followers, yet He sends also His chosen ones to bear testimony of the love which He came to manifest. God has manifested Himself in man. In man He seeks sinners. Man has part in the most immediate display of the divine nature in both ways. He is with Christ as man; and he is sent by Christ. Christ Himself does this as man. It is man full of the Holy Ghost. Thus we see Him again manifested in dependence on His Father before choosing the apostles; He retired to pray, He passes the night in prayer.

And now He goes beyond the manifestation of Himself, as personally full of the Holy Ghost to bring in the knowledge of God among men. He becomes the centre, around which all must come who sought God, and a source of mission for the accomplishment of His love-the centre of the manifestation of divine power in grace. And, therefore, He called around Him the remnant who should be saved. His position, in every respect, is summed up in that which is said after He came down from the mountain. He comes down with the apostles from His communion with God. In the plain [20] He is surrounded by the company of His disciples, and then by a great multitude, drawn together by His word and works. There was the attraction of the word of God, and He healed the diseases of men, and cast out the power of Satan. This power dwelt in His Person; the virtue that went out of Him gave these outward testimonies to the power of God present in grace. The attention of the people was drawn to Him by these means. Nevertheless we have seen that the old things, to which the multitude were attached, were passing away He surrounded Himself with hearts faithful to God, the called of His grace. Here therefore He does not, as in Matthew, announce strictly the character of the kingdom, to shew that of the dispensation which was at hand, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, etc.; but, distinguishing the remnant, by their attachment to Himself, He declares to the disciples who followed Him that they were these blessed ones. They were poor and despised, but they were blessed. They should have the kingdom. This is important, because it separates the remnant, and puts them in relationship with Himself to receive the blessing. He describes, in a remarkable manner, the character of those who were thus blessed of God.

The Lords discourse is divided into several branches.

Luk 6:20-26 The contrast between the remnant, manifested as His disciples, and the multitude who were satisfied with the world, adding a warning to those who stood in the place of disciples, and in that gained the favour of the world. Woe be to such! Remark also here, that it is not a question of persecution for righteousness sake, as in Matthew, but only for His names sake. All was marked by attachment to His Person.

Luk 6:27-36. The character of God their Father in the manifestation of grace in Christ, which they were to imitate. He reveals, note, the Fathers name and puts them in the place of children.

Luk 6:37-38. This character particularly developed in the position of Christ, as He was on earth at that time, Christ fulfilling His service on earth. This implied government and recompense on Gods part, as was the case with regard to Christ Himself.

Luk 6:39. The condition of the leaders in Israel, and the connection between them and the multitude.

Luk 6:40. That of the disciples in relation to Christ.

Luk 6:41-42. The way to attain it, and to see clearly in the midst of evil, is to put evil away from oneself.

Afterwards, in general, its own fruit characterised every tree. Coming around Christ to hear Him was not the question, but that He should be so precious to their hearts that they would put aside every obstacle and practically obey Him.

Let us sum up these things which we have been considering. He acts in a power which dispels evil, because He finds it there, and He is good; and God alone is good. He reaches the conscience, and calls souls to Himself. He acts in connection with the hope of Israel and the power of God to cleanse, pardon and give them strength. But it is a grace which we all need; and the goodness of God, the energy of His love, did not confine itself to that people. Its exercise did not agree with the forms on which the Jews lived (or, rather, could not live); and the new wine must be put into new bottles. The question of the sabbath settled the question of the introduction of this power; the sign of the covenant gave way to it: He who exercised it was Lord of the sabbath. The lovingkindness of the God of the sabbath was not stayed, as if having His hands tied by that which He had established in connection with the covenant. Jesus then assembles the vessels of His grace and power, according to the will of God, around Himself. They were the blessed ones, the heirs of the kingdom. The Lord describes their character. It was not the indifference and pride that arose from ignorance of God, justly alienated from Israel, who had sinned against Him, and despised the glorious manifestation of His grace in Christ. They share the distress and pain which such a condition of Gods people must cause in those who had the mind of God. Hated, proscribed, put to shame for the sake of the Son of man, who had come to bear their sorrows, it was their glory. They should share His glory when the nature of God was glorified in doing all things according to His own will. They would not be put to shame in heaven; they should have their reward there, not in Israel. In like manner had their fathers done unto the prophets. Woe unto those that were at ease in Zion, during the sinful condition of Israel, and their rejection and ill-treatment of their Messiah! It is the contrast between the character of the true remnant and that of the proud among the people.

We then find the conduct that is suitable to the former conduct which, to express it in one word, comprises in its essential elements, the character of God in grace, as manifested in Jesus on the earth. But Jesus had His own character of service as the Son of man; the application of this to their particular circumstances is added in Luk 6:37-38. In Luk 6:39 the leaders of Israel are set before us, and in Luk 6:40 the portion of the disciples. Rejected like Himself, they should have His portion; but, assuming that they followed Him perfectly, they should have it in blessing, in grace, in character, in position also. What a favour! [21] Moreover, the judgment of self, and not of ones brother, was the means of attaining clear moral sight. The tree good, the fruit would be good. Self-judgment applies to the trees. This is always true. In self-judgment, it is not only the fruit that is corrected; it is oneself. And the tree is known by its fruit-not only by good fruit, but by its own. The Christian bears the fruit of the nature of Christ. Also it is the heart itself, and real practical obedience, that are in question.

Here then the great principles of the new life, in its full practical development in Christ, are set before us. It is the new thing morally, the savour and character of the new wine-the remnant made like unto Christ whom they followed, unto Christ the new centre of the movement of the Spirit of God, and of the calling of His grace. Christ has come out of the walled court of Judaism, in the power of a new life and by the authority of the Most High, who had brought blessing into this enclosure, which it was unable to acknowledge. He had come out from it, according to the principles of the life itself which He announced; historically, He was still in it.

Footnotes for Luke Chapter 6

18: This is an important point. A part in the rest of God is the distinctive privilege of saints-of Gods people. Man had it not at the fall, still Gods rest remained the special portion of His people. He did not get it under the law. But every distinct institution under the law is accompanied by an enforcement of the sabbath, the formal expression of the rest of the first Adam, and this Israel will enjoy at the end of this worlds history. Till then, as the Lord said so blessedly, My Father worketh hitherto and I work. For us, the day of rest is not the seventh day, the end of this worlds week; but the first day, the day after the sabbath, the beginning of a new week, a new creation, the day of Christs resurrection, the commencement of a new state for man, for the accomplishment of which all creation round us waits, only we are before God in Spirit as Christ is. Hence the Sabbath, the seventh day, the rest of the first creation on human and legal ground, is always treated with rejection in the New Testament, though not set aside till judgment came, but as an ordinance it died with Christ in the grave, where He passed it-only it was made for man as a mercy. The Lords day is our day, and precious external earnest of the heavenly rest.

19: I may remark here that, where chronological order is followed in Luke, it is the same as in Mark and that of the events, not as in Matthew put together to bring out the object of the Gospel; only he occasionally introduces a circumstance which may have happened at another time illustrative of the subject historically related. But in chapter 9 Luke arrives at the last journey up to Jerusalem (Luk 9:51), and, from this on, a series of moral instruction follows to chapter 18: 31, chiefly, if not all, during the period of this journey, but which for the most part has little to say to dates.

20: Properly a level place on the mountain. (topou pedinou)

21: This however does not speak of nature intrinsically, for in Christ was no sin. Nor has the word used for perfect that sense. It is one completely thoroughly instructed, formed completely by the teaching of his master He will be like him, as his master, in all in which he was formed by him. Christ was the perfection; we grow up unto Him in all things unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (see Col 1:28).

Fuente: John Darby’s Synopsis of the New Testament

CHAPTER 14

JESUS RETURNS TO GALILEE

Mat 12:1-18; Mar 2:23-28, and Luk 6:1-5. We find that our Lord spent but two weeks at Jerusalem during this tour, preaching and working miracles all the time, of which we have no record; but the fifth chapter of John giving us one notable miracle and one powerful sermon. Luke informs us that the incident, here recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, took place on the Sabbath following the Passover, which began on the Sabbath, ran through the intervening week, and closed on the ensuing Sabbath; thus, according to Luke’s testimony, giving our Savior two-weeks’ evangelistic tour in Jerusalem. Inquiry naturally rises why He returns to Galilee so soon, when He had spent about ten months of the preceding year in that country. Our Lord gives the reason (Joh 4:44). Jerusalem and Judea were the regions of great population, while Galilee was the more thinly settled. Again, as He was a native Galilean, His ministry would not attract the amount of popular attention there as at Jerusalem, and especially on occasions of the great festivals, thus augmenting the probability of their cutting short His ministry by crowning Him King. Therefore He did most of His preaching and performed most of His mighty works in the comparatively thinly populated regions of Galilee.

Mark: And it came to pass that He was journeying on the Sabbath, through the corn-fields, and His disciples began to pursue the journey, plucking the ears [i.e., the wheat-heads]. And the Pharisees continued to say to Him, Behold what they are doing on the Sabbath, which is not lawful. And He said to them, Have you not read what David did when he had need, and he and those who were with him were hungry? How he entered into the house of God, in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which it is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and he gave it to those who were with him? And He said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath. Matthew: Have you not read in the law that the priests on the Sabbath in the ‘temple do profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? But I

say unto you, There is One here greater than the temple. If you had known what that is, I wish mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all relate this incident, which transpired on the Sabbath following the Passover, while our Lord and His disciples were prosecuting their pedestrian journey back to Galilee. Remember that we are now in the beginning of the second year of our Savior’s ministry, two more years and two Passovers yet to come. We see our Lord’s critics raise no objection to their plucking the wheat-heads, rubbing them out in their hands and eating them (it is more probable it was barley, as this occurred about the first of May, the beginning of the barley harvest, the wheat coming on about a month later), as this privilege was granted in the law of Moses (Deu 21:2); but they arraign Him for violating the Sabbath, as this happened to take place on that day, showing how very fanatical they were, that they wouldn’t allow them to get a little something to eat on the Sabbath. Excessive zeal on non- essentials has characterized the fallen Churches of every age. At this point they murdered the martyrs, too blind to see their holy lives, and actually massacring them because they did not conform to the non-essential human regulations of a fallen ecclesiasticism. Our Savior here gives them the case of the priests, who offer the sacrifices, and work hard in the temple on the Sabbath, and are blameless. He also corroborates it by the case of David (1Sa 21:1-7), who, in his flight from Saul, came to Nob, in the days of Abiathar, the priest, he and his men, in their extremity and destitution, eating the shewbread in the temple, which was lawful only for the priests to eat. I wish mercy and not sacrifice is the key to this entire problem. God wants a broken heart and a contrite spirit, a penitent soul, on whom He can have mercy, free and unlimited i.e., save him for nothing, except the vicarious work of Christ instead of a great sacrifice, offered in pomp and demonstration by some rich person, whose heart is far from Him, vainly flattering himself that he can pay his way to heaven. In this way millions of wealthy Church members make their bed in hell, depending on their offerings to the Lord, instead of falling, a miserable, bankrupt suppliant, at the feet of Jesus, and there crying for mercy till the heavens bow, and God comes down and answers the prayer of the broken-hearted penitent in the mighty uplift of His omnipotent hand.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Luk 6:1. On the second sabbath after the first. The Hebrew law is, Lev 23:11, on the morrow after the sabbath, the priest shall wave the sheaf east and west, north and south, to denote the universal gratitude which all the earth should pay to heaven for the gift of the harvest. The Baithuseans, says Dr. Lightfoot, contend that the first day of the passover should be on the sabbath, that the offering of the sheaf might fall on the first day of the week. And likewise, that the feast of pentecost might fall also on the first day of the week.

Against this the rabbins contend, that by the morrow after the sabbath must be understood the morrow after the sabbatical day, or on the first day of the week. Rabban Johanan (John) disputing with a Baithusean, says, you shall number fifty days. Lev 23:16. Deu 16:9. His meaning is, if the first of the seven days of the feast of the passover fall on the sabbath, then the sheaf being offered the next day, the feast of pentecost also will fall on the next day after the seventh sabbath. But if it happen in the middle of the week, then from the offering of the sheaf [of barley] we must count not seven sabbaths, but fifty days.

The Baithuseans for this warmth of dispute, say that Master Moses loved Israel, and knowing that the feast of pentecost lasted but one day, appointed the oblation of the sheaf on the morrow after the sabbath, that the people might rejoice for two days.

Luk 6:5. The Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. Some ancient copies add, And that same day, Jesus seeing a man at work on the sabbath, said to him, Friend, if thou knowest what thou art doing, thou art happy; if otherwise, thou art not happy, but a transgressor of the law.

Luk 6:7. The scribes and pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath day. This more fully illustrates their asking a sign. Burning with enmity, they affected to seek the truth; but as neither miracle nor cloud of glory will convert the devil, let us pray to be delivered from him, and seek the truth with a docile mind; for the meek he will guide in judgment. Psa 25:9.

Luk 6:10. Stretch forth thy hand. This was a miracle of defiance to the malicious scribes, but of great mercy to the poor man, that he might now earn his bread. It was a miracle of demonstration to the Saviours mission, and a seal of true religion.

Luk 6:11. They were filled with madness: , distracted, deprived of mind. Violent anger has that effect: ira est furor. They were utterly confounded before God, and disgraced before the people. Awful is the state of men who fight against heaven, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

Luk 6:12. He continued all night in prayer to God. This was the night before he commissioned the twelve to preach; and nothing can more strikingly inculcate on ministers the necessity of prayer before they enter on their work, and before they ascend the pulpit. We must always go from speaking with God to speak for God. Prayer brings us into the state in which we ought to be. It humbles and prepares our minds for the reception of divine light and assistance. It gives us power to call the Lord Father, and to plead with him in the sanctuary in a way that language cannot describe. And as to preaching, knowing whose servants we are, we magnify the ministry in that spirit of faith, piety, and love, that all who hear must recognize the unction and presence of the Lord. It is thus with ministers when they are stripped of self, and clothed with the glory of the Lord.

Luk 6:18. They that were vexed with unclean spirits were healed. Morbo vexari, says Albert, grievous cases of melancholy, excited by demons: a double affliction, both of body and mind.

Luk 6:21. Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. These words may be regarded as fraught with consolation for the poor, provided their poverty is connected with piety. And true piety, as in the case of Lazarus, sheds a celestial glory on the most abject condition of human life.

Luk 6:24-26. Woe to you that are rich, and yet uncharitable. The four woes which here follow the four beatitudes, form a striking contrast, and illustrate the portrait by darker shades. All could not be written which the Saviour said. Those who are full, enjoying health, affluence, and ease, are difficult to be apprised of danger; and those who are applauded by the world, bear strong marks of friendship for the world. These woes are not however to be understood as execrations, but as designating an unhappy state. He said of christians flying from Jerusalem, woe to those that are pregnant, and to those that give suck in those days.

Luk 6:27-29. Love your enemies. Such is the example of providence, for our heavenly Father sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Quite the reverse is the conduct of man; he kills his enemies, and often in so doing is killed himself. We must in all things behave towards them with the kindness of God towards us; we must pray for them, and perform all good offices towards them. This extinguishes unhallowed fires by withholding fuel. We must turn the other cheek to their rebukes; and when they perceive that grace reigns, they will be awed at Jehovahs presence.

Luk 6:31. As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them. This is called the golden rule of equity. It is a primitive law, being found among profane writers, as well as in the Hebrew scriptures. It is a law always at hand, the living umpire in every mans breast. The most illiterate can read it, unless he be blinded by passion, or biassed by interest.

Luk 6:36. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. When injured by others we should consider the fallen state of man, and what we ourselves are, as well by practice as by nature. We should consider the provocations and strong temptations to which men are exposed, all of which should prompt mankind to show all the mercy which the safety of the state, or circumstances, will allow. In doing so, we have the promise that we shall obtain mercy.

Luk 6:37. Judge not that a mans secret intentions are evil, unless from other parts of his conduct there be a fair ground of inference. An uncharitable judgment is proof that we ourselves have an evil heart. And where proof of evil does appear, condemn not. The offender may have bitterly repented; he may have made some reparation of his fault unknown to us. And when such favourable reforms take place, forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. Blessed is the man whose sins and iniquities are remembered no more.

Luk 6:42. Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye. The history of man is the history of crime. Factions, wars, and depredations roll in succession like the billows of the ocean. Our ethic writers abound with strong censures on public morals; their high tone assumes the hallowed toga, the robe of equity. On a nearer approach, we make the painful discovery, that beneath the robe, the heart of the censor is really not better than that of the censured. This justifies the strong language of the Holy One against all who disguise their own faults by the reprehension of other men.

Luk 6:45. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good. He sees the creation full of God; he improves the passing events so as to administer grace to those that hear, and turns the barren heath into a garden. He is mighty in the scriptures, lively in apprehension, and apt to teach. The Reflections will be found on Mat 5:-7.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Luk 6:1-11. Sabbath Observance (Mar 2:23-28*, Mat 12:1-14*).There is little change to note here. No satisfactory explanation has been found of Luk 6:1 mg. It is a gloss not found in the best MSS. Codex Bez in Lk. transfers Luk 6:5 to the end of Luk 6:10 and in its place has, On the same day He saw a man working on the Sabbath and said to him, Man, if thou knowest what thou doest, blessed art thou; but if thou knowest not thou art accursed and a transgressor of the law. Montefiore thinks the saying too subtle and Pauline to be authentic, doubting whether Jesus would have so openly approved so direct a violation of a fundamental commandment. Note that Lk. (like Mt.) omits Mar 2:27; to him Son of Man always meant Messiah, hence Mar 2:27 could not be used to prove Lk.s 5. In Luk 6:11 he says the Pharisees were filled with madness against Jesus. This is more to his mind than Mk.s statement (Luk 3:5) that Jesus was angry with the Pharisees. The Perfect Man preserves a perfect calm. A tendency to heighten human distress (cf. Luk 8:42, Luk 9:38, only child) appears in Luk 6:6; it is the mans right hand that is withered.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

LORD OF THE SABBATH

(vs.1-11)

“The second Sabbath after the first” is literally translated the “second-first Sabbath” (JND trans.), an unusual expression. The first Sabbath was that following the Passover, and the firstfruits of the produce of the field were offered the next day, the first day of the week, typical of the resurrection of Christ. Therefore the following Sabbath was called “the second-first.” Before the firstfruits were offered to God it was not permitted for anyone to eat, though the grain was ripe, but afterwards they were free to eat. There was therefore no reason why the disciples could not eat of the new grain at this time, and they picked the heads of grain and ate them as they walked through the grain fields (v.1). Deu 23:25 gave permission for them to do this in another man’s field, so long as they did not take the grain away in a vessel.

But the Pharisees had formulated their own new laws, and objected that picking and eating grain on the Sabbath was contrary to the law (v.2), and they dared to reproach “the Lord of the Sabbath” because He had not kept His disciples from working on the Sabbath. But He did not denounce their adding human tradition to God’s law (as He did in Mat 15:3). Rather He referred to what David did (vs.3-4) when he and his men were hungry and even God’s ceremonial law was allowed to be broken to alleviate their hunger. The showbread was for the priests only, but David and his men ate of it (1Sa 21:2-6).

Why was this allowed? The moral circumstances must be considered: the priesthood had sadly failed, the true king was in exile and hungry because of persecution. Could the Pharisees not see a clear resemblance as to the Lord and His disciples? The priesthood then was in a state of corruption: the true King of Israel was despised and His disciples hungry. This should have struck the consciences of the Pharisees, for they and their nation were to blame for the hunger of these disciples of the true King because they had refused to recognize them. Then the Lord adds a telling positive word, “the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath” (v.5). Notice that the word “also” implies a great deal, for He is Lord of all, including the Pharisees!

On another Sabbath, when He was teaching in the synagogue, a man was present who had a withered hand. This case and the one previous are found in the same sequence in both Matthew and Mark. The scribes and Pharisees, zealous for their own laws, watched for an occasion to accuse the Lord, specially since the man was there with a withered hand. Knowing their thoughts, He made an issue of this serious matter. He could have avoided a confrontation by having the man meet him privately to heal him, but the callous religious prejudice of the Pharisees must be faced publicly.

The Lord had the man stand forth in the midst. He then asked the penetrating question as to what is lawful on the Sabbath days, to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it (v.9). How perfectly He brings things into their proper perspective by His simple words! The Pharisees could make no reply, for there was no way out for them except to acknowledge His perfect right to heal on the Sabbath day. He looked at all of them in turn, certainly inviting an honest response. How could any of the objectors meet that gentle, steady gaze? He told the man to stretch forth his hand, which he did, and the hand was immediately restored In the case of the paralyzed man of Chapter 5:18, he was totally helpless, a picture of one lost and in his sins. The man with the withered hand is typical rather of a believer who needs restoration from a state in which he has lost ability for positive works of good. The left hand speaks of works from a negative viewpoint, that is, a believer might desist from evil works and yet be badly impaired as to positive good works (of which the right hand speaks). He needs the grace of the Lord Jesus for restoration.

How cruel and unreasonable is the religious prejudice of the Pharisees! When grace is shown to a man in such need, they were filled with madness because it was done on their holy day (v.11). They would deny the right of God to show compassion on a day when, of all days, it was certainly most becoming. They plotted together as to how to deal with the Lord Jesus, with the intent of killing Him (Mar 3:6). They viciously deny Him the right of saving life on the Sabbath, while they on the same day formulate their evil plans to murder Him!

PRAYER AND THE APPOINTMENT OF HIS APOSTLES

(vs.12-16)

Blessed is the contrast of verse 13! If enemies will take wicked counsel together, the Lord will seek the quiet solitude of the presence of God in a mountain above the common level, and continue all night in prayer to God. Enemies were planning to destroy the work of God. Can this turn Him from it? In no way! His lowly dependence on God for the steadfast continuance of His work is beautifully evident here. There is no proud defiance of man with Him, but the calm confidence of dependence on God’s power to continue His work. Such is the beauty of His perfect Manhood.

Rather than the work being deterred, it increased. In the morning, calling together His disciples, He chose twelve to be called apostles. These had the honor of being His special witnesses and representatives in the work of His grace, for they were to be with Him, thereby having the invaluable experience of learning His character and ways so that later they might be fitted for use in establishing Christianity in the world.

In each case where we find the apostles listed, there is a different order, though in Matthew and Luke they are linked in twos, which implies a witness, though we may be sure there is more than this involved, such as the Word of God committed to them having the authority of God in it. Judas is mentioned at the end as the traitor. Of course the Lord knew him fully when He chose him, but this is designedly a solemn warning to anyone who would dare to nurture a wicked, deceitful heart in dealing with the things of God. Bartholomew is evidently Nathaniel of Joh 1:45.

GREAT CROWDS HEALED

(vs.17-19)

In the Lord coming down to the plain in verse 17 is a picture of His coming to bless the earth at the introduction of the Millennium, but only a glimpse. His apostles, the company of disciples and a great crowd of people from Judea, Jerusalem and Tyre and Sidon, coming to be healed of diseases and demon possession, all indicate this great Millennial gathering (v.17). The blessing was on a large scale, and all sought only to touch Him, for this alone secured healing because of virtue proceeding from Him. None were denied: all were healed. What a contrast to the vaunted healing campaigns that proffessedly-Christian men (and women) conduct today! If two or three are apparently healed, there is loud advertising, but what of the many left unblessed?

PRESENT BLESSING OF DISCIPLES

(vs.20-23)

There is a striking contrast between “the whole multitude” of verses 17-19 and “His disciples” in verse 20. The great blessing of verse 19 might tend to excite the disciples at the prospect of the glory of the kingdom being ushered in. The Lord quiets this with words that indicate they should be prepared for poverty, hunger, weeping and persecution. This is manifestly spoken at a different time that “the sermon on the mount” (Mat 5:6-7), though it includes similar things, but in condensed form. Also the crowd was addressed in Matthew, but in Luke His disciples are addressed. In Luke there is no indication of His speaking from a mountain, as in Mat 5:1.

The Lord had chosen the poor, but He did not bless them with earthly riches, as will be the case in the coming kingdom; yet they were blessed, “for,” as He says, “yours is the kingdom of God.” The inner reality of the kingdom belonged to them then, for they had received the King. Today too the kingdom belongs to those who wait in patience for the return of Him who is King. So, Rev 1:9 shows the apostle John and the Church today to be “in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ.” This is true blessing, true happiness in the face of all that today is contrary to the future glory of the kingdom.

In the Millennium there will be no hunger or thirst: all will be prosperity. Meanwhile to hunger and thirst is a blessing, for it is with the prospect of being filled. In fact, though there may be trying deprivation, yet the soul may even now be filled with spiritual good. If there is weeping now, our Lord being at present rejected and absent, yet weeping will eventually be turned to laughter when we are with the Lord, so even now, in possessing this certainty of future hope, we are more blessed than we realize.

More than this, in persecution the believer is blessed, even when hated and ostracized, his very name held in contempt as though evil (v.22). Yet there is a condition here noted, “for the Son of Man’s sake.” Only if the persecution is for His sake can we claim the blessing, but if so, it is vitally real and valuable. We are exhorted not to be discouraged by persecution, but to rejoice and leap for joy, for such identification with Him is worth infinitely more than a popular life on earth. The Jewish fathers had been guilty of inflicting such persecution on the prophets, and to be identified with the prophets in such suffering is true honor. Moreover, there is great reward, not in the earthly kingdom, but as He says, in heaven (v.23).

WARNINGS TO THE SELF-COMPLACENT

(vs.24-26)

Verse 24 is directly addressed to the rich, not for blessing, but with warning of woe. If before the coming kingdom men seek riches, this is all they have: they ignore the future to receive their consolation now. Those who are full now, satiated with things of this present life, will find themselves hungering. Those who laugh now will yet mourn and weep. Things will be fully reversed from what people naturally think today. If all speak well of us (v.26), it is no sign of God’s approval, but of solemn humiliation to come. Ungodly people spoke well of false prophets and still do so today. Men’s approval is empty, and worse, when one does not have God’s approval.

LOVE TOWARD ENEMIES

(vs.27-36)

Many are spiritually deaf and do not hear such things. They have intentionally closed their ears to the things of Christ. But the Lord then spoke to those who would hear. He told them, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” Love is not merely having a kind feeling, but being genuinely concerned for the true, proper welfare of another If that person returns hatred, it is all the more reason to be concerned for him, for he needs special help. Doing good in return for evil is both rightly representing God and providing an example that should touch the hearts and consciences of others. This, and returning blessing for cursing, requires the lowly dignity of true faith, as do those things that follow, such as praying for one who acts despitefully (v.28). Our natural resentment is greatly modified by the power of the Holy Spirit when we allow Him to work in us ungrieved and unquenched (Eph 4:30; 1Th 5:19).

There may be even physical violence, and not only is this to find us unresisting, but willing to bear further injustice, turning the other cheek. If a school bully were to beat up my child, this is not a question of my own rights merely. Rather, I am responsible for the child, and this should be reported to the school principal or to the parents of the bully. If one steals even our necessary garment (our cloak), we are not to strive to hold on to a garment more necessary still (our tunic) (v.29). Generally one would not steal another’s garment unless he needed it, and we are to consider this. If it were a matter of a person stealing to increase his wealth, or, for instance one stealing a car for the fun of it, the police would actually require us to make a report, for the robber would be a threat to others besides ourselves.

As to giving to everyone who asks from us, this must be subject to sober wisdom; for someone may ask for a large amount to be spent on a project that is questionable, and concern for his own good might be reason to refuse this. We must also draw a firm line when people claiming to be the Lord’s servants, urge us to give to their particular work. There are too many who take advantage of Christianity to make money. But if one is in need and asks for something to relieve that need, we ought to be fully prepared to give to him what is necessary. This attitude will result, by God’s intervention, in receiving back in the same measure that we willingly give (v.38). The Lord is seeking in all of this to draw out the genuine faith of His people. He is certainly not “browbeating” His own! Also, if one has taken away what belongs to us, faith will make no demands for its return (v.30). However, if one borrows from another and forgets to repay him, it would be only right to remind the person of this, not because we want our rights, but to encourage the other person’s reliability.

If we desire to be treated in a certain way, let us be sure to treat others in this way (v.31). If we do not practice this, why do we expect it of others? Also, if we only love those who show love to us, this is nothing to our credit: such a thing is common among sinful people of the world, as is doing good to those who do good to us (vs.32-33). Or if we lend, expecting to receive as much again, this is the same selfish principle that animates the ungodly (v.34).

Genuine love is much more than this, for it has honest care even for enemies, doing good and lending without expectation of receiving anything back (v.35). There are people who would not ask for a gift, but would not hesitate to ask for a loan, though they have little intention of paying it back. It would be wrong for us to encourage dishonesty in anyone, but so far as we ourselves are concerned, it is better for us to suffer wrong than to demand our rights. Faith on our part can leave my such things in the hand of God. If so, our reward will be great, and also in practical life we shall be children of the Highest, rightly representing His character of kindness to all, whether they are thankful or not. The reason for our being merciful is simply that our Father is merciful (v.36).

JUDGING CRITICALLY FORBIDDEN

(vs.37-42)

If we are to be merciful, then it follows that we must avoid a judging, critical attitude, even though others are wrong (v.37). We are not their masters. If we do speak of their wrongs, let it be with a genuine desire to see them restored and blessed, not to put them down. Generally speaking, if we refrain from harsh criticisms we will find that others are not so likely to criticize us. If we readily forgive others, then others are more likely to forgive us, for we must remember there are cases where we also need forgiveness. This does not contradict the judgment of actions that is required in cases where serious evil has come into the assembly, as in 1Co 5:3-5. Even there, harsh criticism would be out of place, but solemn, sober discipline carried out in a spirit of true self-judgment, yet firm scriptural decision by the local assembly.

In contrast to personal judging, a character of liberality (v.38) will encourage the same character in others. The symbol used of the measurement of certain dry foods, the seller doing everything to give full weight and measure, and even more. Such unselfishness will awaken unselfishness in others too. How refreshing a contrast Is this to the grasping deceit of people of the world!

The Lord’s parable of verse 39 is connected with verses 37 and 38. If one is blind to what the Lord has been teaching, he needs another with open eyes to lead him. If both are blind, neither has a proper example to follow: they both fall into the ditch. The believer is not blind, but let him keep his eyes open! Also, if one has a proper teacher, he should not remain blind, spiritually speaking. Certainly the disciple is not superior to his teacher: if so, he would not require his teaching, but if the teacher has taught him well, so he becomes mature, he shall be “as his teacher,” that is, there will be a similarity (v.40). Let us therefore learn well from the Lord Himself and we shall become more like Him.

Verses 41 and 42 show that our sight may be very discerning as to the fault of another and fail to discern a greater fault in ourselves. Rather than giving helpful teaching, we may sharply criticize a trifling matter, but ignore more serious evil in ourselves. Unless we use honest self-judgment as to our own actions, we shall not see clearly to be of help to others in overcoming whatever impediments they may have.

This goes deeper than things seen on the surface. It is the heart that must be reached, for only if the heart has been purified by faith, will good fruit proceed from the person (vs.43-45). If the tree is corrupt, whatever fruit it may bear will be corrupt. An unbeliever may attempt to pass as a believer, but the results will eventually manifest him as a corrupt tree. He will be known by his fruit. It is useless to think of finding figs on a thorn-bush or grapes on a bramble.

The Lord in these verses is striking at people’s pretense of goodness, while their hearts are untouched by His grace, unregenerate, and therefore still under sin. A good person is one whose heart is purified by faith in the Son of God, for by nature “there is none good, no not one” (Rom 3:12). Only the grace of God can make a difference in the person. In this case a “good treasure” is implanted in his heart, the treasure of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, communicated to “earthen vessels” (2Co 4:6-7). Only good can come from this, however weak the vessel may be. Without this good treasure a person has only “an evil treasure” in his heart and his mouth soon expresses this, for what is predominant in the heart, his mouth will speak.

REAL OR PRETENDED DISCIPLESHIP?

(vs.46-49)

Deceit in one’s heart will often result in good-sounding words. One of the worst forms of hypocrisy is to call Jesus “Lord” when one has no intention of obeying Him (v.46), but this is as common an evil today as it was when He was here. This does not at all contradict 1.Corinthians 12:3, which says, “no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit”. In 1.Corinthians 12 Paul is speaking of ministry being given in the assembly, where the Lordship of Christ was paramount. If one’s ministry fully acknowledged Jesus as Lord, then that ministry was by the power of the Holy Spirit. But here in Luke the Lord does not have the Assembly in mind at all, but people who would glibly use the Lord’s name without any thought of subjection to Him. In contrast to this, the Lord expresses His approval and encouragement of the reality of faith that takes His Word to heart, hearing with a faith that responds in obedient action. The person of the Lord Jesus means everything to such an one. He digs deep, through all the mere accumulation of earthly-mindedness, and reaches the bedrock, typical of Christ as the Son of God (Mat 16:1-18). He wants reality and is satisfied with nothing less than the eternal Son of God on whom to build his entire life. Whatever floods or storms arise, he is not moved, for it is the foundation Rock that secures him (v.48).

On the other hand, if one “hears” with no resulting obedience, he is building without a foundation. To him the words of the Lord Jesus are merely optional principles of a good man, not having great importance. To such a person the Lord’s words do not indicate the truth of who the Lord Jesus is. But to separate His words from the solid, eternal truth of His person as the living Son of God is to leave the hearer so exposed to the storms of circumstances as to have no place of standing at all. He has no foundation and comes to ruin (v.49).

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

Verse 1

The second Sabbath after the first. This expression is thought to refer to an enumeration of the Sabbaths after the passover described Leviticus 23:15.–Corn. The corn of Judea consisted of what are called the smaller grains, as wheat and barley.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

CHAPTER 6

Ver. 1.-And it came to pass on the second Sabbath after the first.-On the second Sabbath. The Arabic version.

What was this Sabbath?

1. The eighth day of unleavened bread or the last day of the Passover. Epiphanius, Vetablus, and others.

The first day of unleavened bread or the second day of the Passover, and therefore both the first and second Sabbath or Feast-day. Isidore, Euthymius, and another.

3. The Feast of Pentecost. The second or next greatest to the Passover. Maldonatus.

4. I however consider that this Sabbath was not a feast but a Sabbath in the strict sense of the word, i.e. a day on which the Jews were forbidden even to prepare their food (Exo 35:3), which they were permitted to do on other feasts (Exo 12:16).

That this is the true interpretation is clear from the other Evangelists, who speak of this day as simply a Sabbath.

(In accordance with Lapide the Revised Version reads, “Now it came to pass on a Sabbath.”)

But why is this Sabbath called the second after the first?

1. Because it followed on a feast (Theophylact); or, as others hold, because it was followed by a feast, and thus became the first before the second, which was close at hand.

2. Scaliger considers it to be the first Sabbath after the Feast of the Passover, called the second after the first, because it was the first after the second day of unleavened bread, from which day was numbered the seven weeks to Pentecost. So, also Vasquez.

3. S. Chrysostom and others think the words imply a feast or Sabbath in a twofold sense, a day on which another feast-day falls, and that they convey the same meaning as the Latin word “duplitia;” but to this interpretation Jansenius objects.

4. But it is most probable that the words mean the Sabbath which fell within the week of Pentecost or on the Feast-day itself. The Pascal Sabbath being distinguished as the first or principal Sabbath of the whole year. S. Joh 19:31.

(1.) This opinion is confirmed by the fact that what is here narrated of the disciples must have happened about the time of Pentecost, i.e. when the corn was ripe. Hence the command to the Jews to offer their firstfruits, Lev 23:17.

(2.) And because, as I have showed, this was a Sabbath in the strict sense of the word, and was called second, in respect of some other Sabbath which held rank as the first, and not with any reference to the Passover or any other feast.

(3). Because, again, none of the other opinions seem to be probable. For, to sum up, the Feasts of the Passover and Pentecost are so nearly connected, that, although one is first in dignity and order, the second follows in all respects closely upon it. For this reason the Italians call Pentecost the Passover of the Holy Ghost. The same may be said also of the Sabbaths which fall within these feasts; therefore the Church numbers her Sundays from Easter to Pentecost, and from the latter festival to Advent.

But you will object that the week of Pentecost was not a feast in the same sense as the week of the Passover: therefore that the Sabbath which fell in it was not of more importance than any other. I answer that although the Pentecostal week was not commanded by the law to be kept as a feast, it was so kept by the piety of the Jews. Genebrardus’ Hebrew Calendar, and on the Psalms.

Figuratively, saysS. Ambrose, we may understand this Sabbath to mean the Gospel, which is second to the law in point of time, but first in dignity and importance.

He further adds, commenting on Ps. xlvii., the words “second Sabbath after the first” mean the Jewish Sabbath, for after the resurrection the Lord’s day took its place. From that time therefore it became second in dignity, yet at the same time it was rightly called first, because of its sanctity and the priority of its institution.

Figuratively, Christ taught and worked His chief miracles on the Sabbath not only to prefigure the spiritual Sabbath, when the mind, no longer taken up with evil lusts and passions, will be free to serve God alone, but because of the gathering together of the people, as they assemble now on the Lord’s-day.

There was also another reason, viz., to teach the Jews the true observance of the Sabbath, and that they might no longer be offended at the wonderful works which Christ wrought on that day, as were the Scribes, who accused Him of transgressing the law, and gave Him up to that death by means of which God effected the redemption of mankind. Bede.

Ver. 5.-The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath. See S. Mat 12:8.

Ver. 11.-And they were filled with madness. , deprived of understanding, they could not answer Him a word; they were filled with anger because they could not gainsay the reasoning of Christ, and with envy, as the Syriac renders it, which was the cause of their madness. Their eyes were blinded so that they could not see the truth! Hence Francis Lucas adds, they communed one with another what they might do with Jesus, i.e. how they might make away with Him.

Ver. 12.-He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God-communing with God in prayer, asking the Father that He might choose for the ministry men fitted to be apostles, and would obtain for them an abundance of spiritual grace to enable them to fulfil the duties of their office; and also that He might teach us to pray in like manner.

So the Church at Ember-tide enjoins her children to fast and to pray that fitting persons may be chosen for the work of the ministry, and that those admitted to any holy function may be filled with grace and heavenly benediction; for as with the priest so with the people. When a chief pastor is zealous and God-fearing, he is a blessing and a strength to his diocese, but if he be an evil liver or slothful, he becomes a stumbling-block and offence to believers. In like manner, also, a good priest makes a good parish, but an evil one is for a destruction to his people.

Figuratively, Christ teaches us to pray in the night season that we may be the better able in silence and solitude to collect our thoughts and lift our hearts unto God; that we may be preserved from terror by night and from the pestilence that walketh in darkness, and also that by our prayers during the night we may obtain spiritual graces for the profit of our fellow-men during the ensuing day.

Hence Christ prayed by night and taught in the daytime. So did S. Paul, Act 16:25; and many other saints; 1Ti 5:5.

For the same reason David so often commends prayer during the night time, “Ye that by night stand in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary,” Psa 134:1-2.

“At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto Thee,” Psa 119:62.

“In the night I commune with mine own heart,” Psa 77:6.

“My tears have been my meat day and night,” Psa 42:3.

See also Commentary on Deu 6:7.

Ver. 20.-Blessed are ye poor . . . in spirit (See S. Mat 5:3), for poorness of spirit is a rich and precious virtue. Therefore S. Ambrose rightly concludes that poverty, privations, and sorrow, which the world counts evil, not only are no hindrances, but on the contrary have been declared by Him who could neither deceive nor be deceived, to be of great assistance towards the attainment of a holy and a happy life.

The same writer goes on to give the reason why S. Luke has reduced the number of the beatitudes to four. He was content that they should include the four cardinal virtues. Justice, which, coveting not the possessions of others, rejoices in holy poverty; temperance, which had rather suffer want than be full; prudence, which chooses to sorrow here, in hope of the joy which shall be revealed; and Fortitude, which for sake of Christ and His Gospel, endures persecution and so triumphs over every enemy. Hence we read that the poor, the temperate, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness (S. Matthew), the just, those who weep, the prudent who despise earthly things and seek heavenly, those hated of their fellowmen, not because of any misdeeds but for the Gospel’s sake, who, steadfast in the faith, seek for future happiness by pleasing God rather than men-that these are indeed blessed.

Ver. 24.-But woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation. To the four beatitudes Christ, by antithesis, opposes as many states of misery and unhappiness.

The poor are blessed for all eternity, but the rich receive in this world their consolation; the hungry shall be satisfied with good things, but those that are full now shall be sent empty away. They who weep here shall hereafter rejoice, but for those who laugh now there is reserved a future of mourning; and those that are spoken well of by their fellow men, are laying up for themselves an eternity of woe.

For , Latin v, as S. Gregory points out (Hom. ix. on Ezekiel), oftentimes in Scripture denotes the wrath of God and everlasting punishment. Hence this word is here used by Christ partly as a lament over the future and eternal misery of the worldly, (S. Chrysostom, Hom. 44 ad pop.); partly as a prophecy of it (Titus); partly as threatening and decreeing such punishment against them (Tertullian, bk. iv. against Marcian).

You that are rich. As by poor we understand those poor in spirit who love poverty because thereby they are the better able to please God, so we may take the word rich to mean those who, greedy of gain, heap up riches by any means in their power, and look upon wealth as their sole happiness and the one object of their life. Hence mortal sin, robbery, extortion, unfair dealing, and other such like sins. Therefore the denunciation of Christ. But those who are rich by inheritance and honest labour, as long as they are not corrupted by their riches, but use them for the glory of God and the good of their fellow men, in reality are poor, as were the patriarchs, David, and many other of the saints of old.

For it is not the amount he possesses, but the use a man makes of his riches which is accounted sin. So “they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil.” See 1Ti 6:9.

Ye have received your consolation. Ye set your heart on your riches, use them for your own evil gratification, and put them in the place of your God. Therefore ye are allowed the enjoyment of them in this life, but in the life which is to come ye will, as Christ has here declared, come short of everlasting happiness, for those who have in this world received their consolation will lose their eternal reward.

Hence S. Hieronymus (Epist. xxxiv.), when endeavouring to persuade Julian, a rich nobleman, to give up the world and devote himself to a holy and religious life, uses this powerful argument. “It is difficult, it not impossible,” he says, “to enjoy happiness in both worlds-to give ourselves up to our evil lusts and passions here, but to become spiritually minded after death-to pass from one state of happiness to the other-to acquire glory both in this world and in the next, . . . and to be distinguished equally in heaven and on earth. Hence Abraham returned none other answer to the rich man than this, ‘Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things, but now be is comforted and thou art tormented.'” See chapter xvi. 25.

So also Christ is said to have offered S. Catherine of Siena two crowns, one set with jewels, the other begirt with thorns, bidding her choose which she would wear in this life, which in the life to come. She chose the thorny crown, and, regardless of the anguish, pressed it firmly on her head.

Ver. 25.–Woe unto you which are full, &c.-ye who live only for eating and drinking, for ye shall hunger in eternity.

Actual evil-doers will indeed endure heavier punishment, but those who are gluttonous will suffer torment from the absence of those things wherein they delighted. Hence Dives prayed for but one drop of water to cool the tongue which he had accustomed to the richest food and the choicest wine. S. Euthymius.

For, as S. Basil writes, to live for pleasure alone is but to make a god of one’s belly (Phi 3:19). From the one vice of gluttony spring innumerable others which war against the soul. Subdue then this one vice, and you will at the same time subdue many others, for innumerable are the promptings of lust, which following in the train of gluttony, hold out promise of enjoyment, but lead to everlasting misery. S. Gregory in lib. regum, lib. v. cap 1.

The mind which is always accustomed to pleasure, and never weeded of evil by discipline, contracts much moral defilement (S Bernard, Epist. 152); and again (Serm. 48, in Song),”A life spent in pleasure is both death and the shadow of death,, for as a shadow follows close on that by which it is cast, a life of pleasure, beyond dispute, borders on destruction.”

On the contrary, fasting and abstinence give rise to chaste thoughts, reasonable desires and healthful counsels, for by voluntary self-denial the flesh is mortified and spiritual virtues are strengthened and renewed. S. Leo, (serm. 11, de jejunio).

Hence Christ gave S. Catherine this rule of life, “Choose that which is bitter as sweet, avoid that which is sweet as bitter.” See also Ecc 2:1.

Woe unto you which laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep-in this life, and much more in the life to come. S. Basil seems in his rules to forbid all laughter, because this is a life of penitence and sorrow, but the future one of joy and gladness. Certain it is, as S. Augustine points out, that Christ is never said to have laughed, although He often wept.

Mirth in moderation, however, is not forbidden to the followers of Christ. “A fool lifteth up his voice with laughter, but a wise man doth scarce smile a little” (Ecclus. 21:20; and Ecc 2:2), “I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?” Commenting on which passages, I have shown that it is immoderate laughter which is condemned, and not that moderate mirth which is the mark of a kindly disposition and well-regulated mind.

Woe to you that laugh, i.e. to you who laugh with the drunken, and make merry over sinful enjoyment, for you will weep and lament for ever in hell.

Ver. 26.-Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you, &c.When men, who for the most part are carnally minded, speak well of you as setters forth of that which is pleasing to their ears, for they hate the truth, and persecute those who rebuke vice and restrain the evildoer, but praise them who excuse iniquity, whom God abhors. Thus did their forefathers speak well of the false prophets of old, and therefore they all have entered into condemnation. I also condemn you inasmuch as ye follow after their example. This “woe” is the contrary to the blessing promised to the true prophets, who for the gospel’s sake endure persecution, v. 22. So S. Paul: “If I pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.” See Gal 1:10. For he who preaches false doctrine and things pleasing to the carnal mind, causes his hearers to continue in wickedness and commit many sins, and therefore will receive greater damnation.

Again, the preacher who seeks the applause rather than the conversion of his hearers, and looks upon this as the end and object of his ministry, will be condemned; because he sought to obtain the praise of men rather than to advance the glory of God, and made the vainglory of the world the one object of his life, thus destroying the souls of those committed to his care.

Such were the false teachers whom Jeremiah and the other prophets so often were called upon to refute. “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means, and my people love to have it so,” Jer 5:31.

Ver. 27.-But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies. Christ, after solemnly warning those who live for pleasure alone, now addresses His own disciples. “I have denounced woe against the wicked, but to you who hear my words, and seek the salvation of your souls, I give as a first and chief commandment that you should love your enemies.” See S. Mat 5:44.

Ver. 30.-Give to every man that asketh of thee. Not only if lie is in want of the necessaries of life, but if he needs counsel, advice, or aid of any kind, for thus ye will be showing mercy and pity both to the souls and bodies of your fellow men. See S. Mat 5:42. S. Luke here adds the words “to every man,” which S. Matt. omits, from which we are to understand that we are to give as far us we honestly and rightly can to every one that asketh, but not to one that asketh for anything or everything. For a man may ask us to give him money for a wrongful purpose, or even to commit actual sin. Hence we are only bound to give that which, as far as we know, will neither be hurtful to ourselves or to him that receiveth the gift: and in case we refuse to give, we must justify our refusal, so that he who asks may not go discontented away.

To every one therefore that asketh of thee, give not always that which he asks, but oftentimes that which is better-a denial if the request is one which we can show that it would be wrong to comply with. S. Augustine.

And of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again, neither by power of law or in any other way, as S. Augustine explains. Which is a command, in the case of one who, under pressure of want, has despoiled thee, but is otherwise a counsel. So we read, “Ye exact all your labours,” Isa 58:3.

And again in the parable, the unmerciful servant, because he had no pity, was delivered to the tormentors until he should pay all the debt which had been forgiven him. S. Matt. xviii. So Spiridion, and many hermits of old, gave up to the owners the sheep which they had stolen.

Ver. 34.-And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive (a like benefit), what thank have ye?” For this is not kindness but commerce, the exchange of kindness for kindness. Ye give for what ye hope to receive, not for love of God; and thus the hope of a return of the benefit conferred deprives the act of the favour of God. Interlinear Gloss.

Ver. 35.-Lend, hoping for nothing again. “From men,” adds the Syriac, “that you may receive your reward of God.”

Nothing, i.e. no pledge or return of any kind. Christ would have us lend, not only without exacting usury for the loan, but also without expecting a similar kindness in return. For what is it but self-seeking and avarice, if I lend to another that he in his turn may lend to me? Christ here enjoins the true benevolence which lends freely, content that at the appointed time the loan should be returned. Some, indeed, think that there should be no return, but the words of Christ do not bear this construction. For that which is lent without expectation of return, is given, not lent, and becomes not a loan but a gift. Toletus, Lessius, Valentia, and others.

Hence to seek to profit by a loan is contrary to the meaning of the word and the nature of the transaction. For the word mutuum (in the Greek , mutuum date, Vulgate), implies that they are mutuo animo, who give because of duty (Varro); or, as Verius Marcellus better explains it, mutuum means the same as meum tuum, because out of friendly feeling mine becomes thine for present needs and necessities. Hence S. Gregory Nyssen writes, “He who exacts interest on a loan, is condemned as a usurer;” for a loan is a friendly transaction, freely given and to be freely restored.Cicero, Epist. ad Metellum.

A kindly-hearted man, therefore, will lend to him who is in need, even though he may have reason to believe he will never be repaid, for there are many poor who cannot, and many unworthy persons who will not return that which is lent them.

Hence a witty writer, “If you lend to your friend and ask a return of the loan, you will lose either the one or the other;” and again, “By lending money, I have purchased to myself an enemy and lost a friend.” He therefore who lends should lend for the love of God, who will richly repay, as is written, “He that hath pity on the poor lendeth unto the Lord.” See Pro 19:17.

Hence S. Chrysostom: “The poor receive the gift, but God becomes the debtor;” and S. Basil (conc. 4 de Eleemosyna) “That which thou art about to give to the poor for the love of God, becomes both a gift and a loan,-a gift, because there is no expectation of return-a loan, because of the goodness of God, who will richly recompense in their name those who have relieved the necessities of the poor.”

Wherefore we may take in a Christian sense that which is written: “Lose thy money for thy brother and thy friend.” See Ecclus, xxix. 10, and my comments thereon. But when men take that which is lent, without a thought of returning it, no one is willing to become a lender.

Ver. 38.-Give, and it shall be given unto you. Many are lavish of their promises, few are liberal in their gifts. Hence Antigonus as Plutarch tells us, was commonly called Doson, because he was always ready to say , I will give, but never performed his promise of giving. Therefore, Christ bids us “give,” i.e. give a once and without delay, and it shall be given you.

For God puts it in the hearts of men amply to repay a liberal giver. It is said that a certain monastery became rich because of the large amounts expended in charity, but that, when these were withheld, it was reduced to poverty. When the steward was complaining of this to one whom he was entertaining, the guest said Date and dabitur are sisters: you cast out the former, and soon her sister and inseparable companion followed. If you wish the latter to return, recall the former, and give as largely as you were accustomed to do. See verse 27, S. Mat 5:42, and elsewhere. For almsgiving enriches and does not impoverish. Hence S. Chrysostom says it is the most profitable of all acts. And Christ has declared that the merciful are blessed, for they shall obtain mercy. See S. Mat 5:7.

Fuente: Cornelius Lapide Commentary

6:1 And {1} it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples {a} plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing [them] in [their] hands.

(1) Christ shows against the superstitious, who dwell on every trifling matter, that the law of the very sabbath was not given to be kept without exception: much less that the salvation of man should consist in the outward keeping of it.

(a) Epiphanius notes well in his treatise, where he refutes Ebion, that the time when the disciples plucked the ears of the corn was in the feast of unleavened bread. Now, in those feasts which were kept over a period of many days, as the feast of tabernacles and passover, their first day and the last were very solemn; see Lev 23:1-44 . Luke then fitly calls the last day the second sabbath, though Theophylact understands it to be any of the sabbaths that followed the first.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

5. Jesus’ authority over the Sabbath 6:1-5 (cf. Matthew 12:1-8; Mark 2:23-28)

The final two instances of confrontation with the Pharisees that Luke recorded involved Sabbath observance. The Sabbath was one of Judaism’s main institutions, and Jesus’ violation of traditional views on Sabbath observance brought the religious leaders’ antagonism toward Him to a climax. Here was a case in point that Jesus’ new way could not exist with Israel’s old way. Sabbath observance had its roots not only in the Mosaic Law but in creation. Furthermore its recurrence every seventh day made it a subject of constant attention.

"The interesting thing about Jesus’ approach is that He was not simply arguing that repressive regulations should be relaxed and a more liberal attitude adopted: He was saying that His opponents had missed the whole point of this holy day. Had they understood it they would have seen that deeds of mercy such as His were not merely permitted-they were obligatory (cf. Joh 7:23 f.)." [Note: Morris, pp. 121-22.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Mark recorded that the Pharisees voiced their question to Jesus, but Luke wrote that they asked Jesus’ disciples. Probably they did both. Luke chose to relate their question to the disciples apparently because Jesus then stepped in and answered for them (Luk 6:3). Thus Luke showed his readers Jesus’ position as the Master who comes to the defense of His disciples. Luke alone also mentioned the disciples rubbing the ears of grain in their hands, probably to give his readers a more vivid picture of what really happened.

The law permitted people to glean from the fields as they passed through them (Deu 23:25). However the Pharisees chose to view the disciples’ gleaning as harvesting and their rubbing the grain in their hands as threshing and winnowing as well as preparing a meal. The Pharisees considered all these practices inappropriate for the Sabbath.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)