Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 6:22
Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you [from their company,] and shall reproach [you,] and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.
22. hate you…separate you…reproach…cast out your name as evil ] We have here four steps of persecution increasing in virulence:
(1) General hatred, (2) Exclusion from the synagogue, a lesser excommunication, viz. the Neziphah or exclusion for 30 days, or Niddoui for 90 days (Gfrorer, Jahrh. d. Heils, 1. 183; Joh 9:34. Hence aphorismos means ‘ excommunication ’), (3) Violent slander, (4) The Cherem, Shammata, or greater excommunication, permanent expulsion from the Synagogue and Temple (Joh 16:2). The Jews pretended that our Lord was thus excommunicated to the blast of 400 ram’s horns by Joshua Ben Perachiah (Wagenseil, Sota, p. 1057), and was only crucified forty days after because no witness came forward in His favour.
as evil ] ‘Malefic’ or ‘execrable superstition’ was the favourite description of Christianity among Pagans (Tac. Ann. xv. 44; Suet. Nero, 16), and Christians were charged with incendiarism, cannibalism, and every infamy. (The student will find such heathen views of Christianity collected in my Life of St Paul, Exc. 15: Vol. 1.)
for the Son of man’s sake ] The hatred of men is not in itself a beatitude, because there is a general conscience which condemns certain forms of wickedness, and a man may justly incur universal execration. But the world also hates those who run counter to its pleasures and prejudices, and in that case hatred may be the tribute which vice pays to holiness; 1Pe 2:19; 1Pe 3:14. “The world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world;” Joh 17:14. Still a man may well tremble when he is enjoying throughout life a beatitude of benediction. And ‘the world’ by no means excludes the so-called ‘religious world,’ which has hated with a still fiercer hatred, and exposed to a yet deadlier martyrdom, some of its greatest prophets and teachers. Not a few of the great and holy men enumerated in the next note fell a victim to the fury of priests. Our Lord was handed over to crucifixion by the unanimous hatred of the highest religious authorities of His day.
On the title Son of Man, which occurs in all the four Gospels, see p. 119. In using it Christ “chooses for Himself that title which definitely presents His work in relation to humanity in itself, and not primarily in relation to God or to the chosen people, or even to humanity as fallen.” Canon Westcott (on Joh 1:51) considers that it was not distinctively a Messianic title, and doubts its having been derived from Dan 7:13. “The Son of God was made a Son of Man that you who were sons of men might be made sons of God.” Aug. Serm. 121. As the “Second Adam” Christ is the representative of the race (1Co 15:45) in its highest ideal; as “the Lord from Heaven” He is the Promise of its future exaltation.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Luk 6:22-23
Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil
The necessity of persecution
Persecution is no accident in Christian life.
It is simply inevitable from the collision with evil of Christian righteousness when it becomes positive, especially when it becomes aggressive in the cause of peacemaking. It is the activity of Christian life which lays its own faggots, prepares for itself its own martyrdom. It is when the disciple follows in the wake of the first great Peacemaker, and from the side of God approaches the worlds evil with implied rebukes and an open summons to it to repent, submit, and be at peace, that it is most certain to encounter the worlds missiles. A very holy or unworldly life may be itself so telling a rebuke, even though a silent one, as to draw on some meek, pare souls dislike, and calumny, and malice. But it is the active, witness-bearing, and missionary type of Christian character which provokes the chief resistance. The Christianity of the wholly unpersecuted must be a Christianity defectively aggressive, which has not advanced sufficiently to the last stage, the stage of peacemaking. Nor is this all. Persecution is not simply inevitable as soon as the development of active Christian life leads it into collision with evil; it is an indispensable factor in the very development and perfecting of Christian life. Persecution is not indeed a grace; but persecution is the creator of a grace (Jam 1:3-4). (J. C.Dykes, D. D.)
Bitterness of social and domestic persecution
I cannot but think that this has been, on the whole, not less trying than outward and violent persecutions, for persons assailed by it have to bear their troubles mostly in secret. They have little sympathy from others; nor any of the rising of the spirit of passive (passing into active) heroism which, when mens eyes are on it, is naturally roused into energetic resistance. For, indeed, there are several things which tend to hold a man up in his visible endurance of visible persecution. He is as a champion of a cause; his personal bravery and earnestness, as well as his conscience, are on trial. He knows that even among those who hound on the cry of persecution against him, there are those who admire his firmness in bearing it. He believes that though overpowered himself, and put to death perhaps, yet suffering and death bravely borne leave a seed behind them which germinates and grows in spite of persecution, and is wont to outlive it. All these things and such as these mingle themselves up with the convictions of conscience, and strengthen it, when the persecution for righteousness sake takes place in the sight of men. But it is otherwise with all the secret and, if I may so call it, unpicturesque suffering of social or domestic life–the chill, and the estrangement, and the unkindness, and the evil report, and the misrepresentation, the thwarting and jealousy, all the details of inward and unseen misery which goes to make up the real persecution which has visited, and no doubt visits still, thousands of people whose hearts desire it is to serve God faithfully, and who are content to bear with evil for Christs sake. And so I can hardly doubt that when that last account twixt heaven and earth shall be made up, it will be found that the persecution of private and social life has been in total amount greater, and maybe its actual bitterness not less, and so its ultimate title of blessedness in Christ as great, as that of those who have been persecuted unto blood for Christs sake. (Bishop Moberly.)
Why persecution is to be accounted a blessing
1. It tests and proves the worth of our religion. It tells us whether our Christianity is positive and aggressive, or whether it is only negative.
2. It forms character, it purifies the life, it develops graces–the great end of religion.
3. A necessary factor in the spiritual life. No cross, no crown. (C. J.Ridgeway, M. A.)
Principles for suffering
1. Wherefore the first principle to enable Christians to suffer for righteousness is, that we should look on ourselves as sent into the world for this end, especially to bear witness to the truth.
2. The second suffering principle is this–It is better to lose for God than to enjoy for ourselves.
3. Whosoever suffers anything for God, in the midst of all their sufferings they are in a better case than their persecutors.
4. That it is a great deal better to suffer for Christ than to suffer for sin.
5. That God may make me suffer in spite of my heart. If I find a reluctancy in me to come off to suffer for Christ, I may be forced in spite of my heart to do it; and what comfort shall I then have in it? How much better is it to suffer freely and willingly for Jesus Christ than to be forced to suffer? and then there will be no exercise of grace in it, but I shall be merely passive. Christ can lay afflictions upon you, and diseases upon you.
6. No creature hath any good in it any farther than it is enjoyed in God, and improved for God.
7. The seventh suffering principle is this: There are no sufferings of any of the saints that they are called unto at any time, but they are ordered by God, for the time of the suffering, for the kind of the suffering, the continuance of the suffering, the instruments of the suffering.
8. That whenever we suffer for Christ, Christ suffers with us; we are partakers of His sufferings, and He is partaker of our sufferings (Isa 63:9).
9. There is more evil in sufferings before they come, in imagination, than when they are come.
10. That there is more evil in the least sin than in the greatest afflictions. It is an ill choice to choose the least sin rather than the greatest affliction.
Now for the blessedness that there is in suffering, many things might be said, but I shall but present before you some short view of what blessedness there is in suffering persecution.
1. If God gives thee a heart to suffer for Him, thou hast in this a full evidence of the truth of thy graces, yea, and of the strength and the eminency of thy graces.
2. There is a great deal of honour in suffering. It is a speech of Ignatius, I had rather be a martyr than a monarch; and so you know Moses chose rather to suffer with the people of God, than to enjoy all the pleasures and riches of Egypt.
3. It is a blessed thing to suffer for righteousness sake, for it is the highest and greatest improvement of mens abilities, graces, comforts, whatsoever they enjoy. It is the highest improvement that can be for them to suffer. Never are mens graces so improved as in times of suffering. As the spices have a more fragrant smell when they are beaten to powder that when they are whole; and so the saints graces are more fragrant in the nostrils of God, and do grow up more in the time of suffering than ever.
4. It is blessed, for those that suffer are under many blessed promises. Why, If you suffer with Him, you shall be glorified with Him. Read 2Ti 2:12, and in Rom 8:1-39., there you have divers excellent expressions wherein there are most excellent promises to such as suffer in the cause of Christ (Mat 19:29). (J. Burroughs.)
Some arguments for the helping of saints to suffer
First, to show the history how all the prophets, disciples, and the saints that have gone before have suffered great and hard things. Secondly, wherein the argument lies of rejoicing under persecution. Thirdly, what use we are to make of the persecution of the prophets. I could handle but the first. To proceed to the second: wherein lies the power of this argument? There is a fivefold strength in this argument, or rather five arguments in it.
1. The same spirit of wickedness that opposed them doth still prevail, and it is the same spirit of truth that is opposed.
2. Hence you may see that those that are dear and precious to God, that they may suffer hard things.
3. If so be God should deal with you otherwise than He did formerly with others, then it might discourage you; but they are no other things than His servants heretofore have suffered.
4. It is the way that God hath brought all His servants into heaven by. Why should you think that God will bring you in a better way than He did others?
5. That though the prophets have suffered such things, yet the truth of God prevails. (J. Burroughs.)
Suffering for the truths sake
I. WE CANNOT BE SERVANTS OF JESUS WITHOUT SUFFERING. The contrast between the natural heart and the ideal Christian is not less marked to-day than it was eighteen hundred years ago. Nothing kindles so much hatred as evangelical love.
II. According to the Saviours declaration, SUFFERING IS A SOURCE OF HAPPINESS.
1. It is a happiness to suffer for a noble cause.
2. The fact that suffering for truth brings with it its own reward is also a reason for joy, as it ensures the triumph of our cause.
3. Your reward is great in heaven, said the Master, thus adding the consolation of a glorious hope to those which flow from duty performed.
4. This triumph of truth in heaven is not enough. It must have its glorious revenge on the very theatre of its humiliations and conflicts. The world must see how mistaken it was in rejecting it, and one day it will be forced to exclaim, O Galilean, Thou hast overcome. (E. de Pressense, D. D.)
The reward of the pious in heaven
I. THE FELICITY WHICH AWAITS THOSE WHO PERSEVERE, THROUGH GOOD REPORT AND EVIL REPORT, IN A STEDFAST ADHERENCE TO CHRIST, IS FREQUENTLY EXPRESSED IN THE SCRIPTURES BY THE NAME OF REWARD.
1. It is inseparably joined to obedience, and promised as a motive to encourage and sustain 2:2. It will be bestowed as a mark of approbation, and acceptance of the obedience to which it is annexed.
3. It will be proportionate to the degree of religious improvement, to the work of faith and labour of love.
II. THE SUPERIORITY OF HEAVENLY TO EARTHLY REWARDS.
1. The rewards of heaven are certain.
2. They are satisfying.
3. They are eternal. (R. Hall, A. M.)
Joy in persecution
Somebody pushed good Mr. Kilpin into the gutter and slapped him on the face at the same time, and said, Take that, John Bunyan; whereupon the good man took off his hat and said, I would take fifty times as much as that to have the honour to be called John Bunyan. Learn to look upon insults for Christ in the same light, and when they call you by an ill name do you reply, I could bear a thousand times as much as that for the pleasure of being associated with Christ in the worlds derision. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Doing right
When the storm [concerning the slave trade] was at its highest, one of Mr. Buxtons friends asked him, What shall I say when I hear people abusing you? Say! he replied, snapping his fingers, say that. You good folk think too much of your good name. Do right, and right will be done. (Life of Fowell Buxton.)
The failure of persecution
And so when bad men are not hardened in wickedness they can be won over by the good, but when they are they hate and persecute the good, whose mere silent lives rebuke them. It was thus that Sodom hated Lot; it was thus that the Ephesians expelled Hermodorus because he was virtuous; it was thus that the Athenians ostracised Aristides because he was just. The honourable and religious gentleman, said a slave-holding member of Parliament, speaking of William Wilberforce, in the House of Commons. He was properly scathed in reply with the lightnings of the great mans eloquence, but the epithet spoke volumes with the silent, unconscious, inevitable rebuke of vice and protest for holiness by every true and righteous man. And mark, that when the bad, hating the good, sneer them out of court, repress them by violence, madden the blind multitude by lies against them, poison them as Socrates was poisoned, banish them as Epictetus was banished, burn them as Savonarola was burnt, execrate them as Whitfield was execrated, do not think that then the good have failed. Even in their ashes live their wonted fires, their voices even from the grave sound in the thunders mouth, their dead hands pull down the stronghold of their enemies, and tyrants tremble at their ghosts. What was the nature of Jesus? Between two murderers He hung in agony upon the cross, amid the howlings alike of secular and religious hatred. Before three centuries were over that gibbet of torture and infamy sat upon the sceptres and shone upon the crowns of kings. (Archdeacon Farrar.)
Sustained in persecution
The annals of the Church furnish terrible illustrations of persecution, and how Christians have been sustained in trial. A youth who had manifested extraordinary patience under the greatest torture, said afterwards, that at the time of his agony an angel seemed to stand beside him, and pointing him to heaven, enabled him to rise in spirit superior to his pain. Pastor Homel, of the French Protestant Church, had his bones all so broken on the wheel that he survived but forty hours. But then, in his dying agony, he said, Though my bones are broken to shivers, my soul is filled with inexpressible joy. (H. Burton.)
On persecution
I have a large field to go over, an Aceldama, a field of blood, a Golgotha, a place of dead mens skulls, where you shall see some stoned, some sawn asunder, some slain with the sword, others having trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, of bonds and imprisonment Heb 11:36-37); but withal (what the eye of flesh cannot discover) blessedness waiting upon them, and shadowing them in the midst of horror. Here is a fair inscription upon a bitter roll, a pleasing preface to a tragical theme, a promise of pleasure in misery, of honour in dishonour, of life in death, of heaven in hell. Here we may see persecution making us strong by making us weak, making us rich by making us poor, making us happy by making us miserable, and driving us through this field of blood into Paradise. The parts of the text are manifestly but two: a blessing pronounced– Blessed are they that suffer persecution, and a reason given–For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. But we may, by a plain and natural deduction, make them three–
I. That they who begin in the other virtues and beatitudes must end in this; or, in the apostles words, They that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution (2Ti 3:12).
II. That persecution bringeth no blessing but to those who suffer for righteousness sake.
III. That to those it doth: which comprehendeth the inscription, Blessedness; and the reason of the inscription, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
I. We find here persecution and blessedness joined together, wrought by the same hand, a hand of mercy, and like sweet and bitter water flow ing from the same fountain, a fountain of love. For it is Gods love and mercy to give us a kingdom; and it is His love and mercy to bring us to it by sufferings, to bring us, as the apostle speaketh, through much tribulation, through the noise and tumults of this world, to a place of rest (Act 14:22). And the reason is as plain, even written with the sunbeams.
1. For, in this, God dealeth with them as a loving father; He doeth it for the trial, or rather the demonstration, of their faith; to make it appear that they do not make a profession of their love, when they hate Him in their heart; depend upon Him for their salvation and happiness, and, when persecution cometh, leave Him and exchange Him for the world, rather yield, and fall under the burden, than stand fast in the faith, and retain Him as their God. There must some occasion and opportunity be offered, some danger, some cross, that may fright me; and when I withstand all, and cleave fast unto Christ, then it will appear that I am His friend and servant. A mariner is best seen in a tempest, and a Christian is best known when persecution rageth.
2. Therefore, in the second place, this is the reason why God suffereth this mixture of good and evil, why He suffereth tyrants and blood-thirsty men to go on and prosper in their ways.
3. Therefore, in the third place, if we consider the Church, which is at her best nothing else but a collection and a body of righteous men, we shall find that, whilst she is on the earth, she is militant; and no other title doth so fully express her.
4. For, in the last place, it cometh not by chance that the righteous are persecuted. What hath chance to do in the school of Providence? No; persecution is brought towards the righteous by the providence and wisdom of a loving Father. I have now brought you into this Aceldama, this field of blood, where you may behold the ungodly for their own lust persecuting the poor (Psa 10:2), where you may behold hypocrites and deceitful men bending their bow, and shooting at the righteous in secret (Psa 64:4), and mighty men drawing their swords and drenching them in their blood. A sad sight, to see righteousness under the whip and harrow! But withal you may discover not only an angel going before them, as before the children of Israel in the wilderness, but Christ Himself leading them through these terrors and amazements to a place of refreshing, to a city not made with hands, to the kingdom of heaven. Oportet, They must suffer; but there remaineth a sabbath for the children of God (Heb 4:9). Persecution is the lot, the inheritance of the righteous: that was our first part.
II. and
III. We will now present you with the second: That every man that suffereth hath not title to this blessedness in the text, but only those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, which comprehendeth all those duties which the gospel requireth at their hands who have given up their names unto Christ. For it is possible that a man may suffer for one virtue, and neglect the rest; may suffer to preserve his chastity, and yet be covetous. He can suffer for the law, and yet break it.
1. And, first, the cause; it must be the love of righteousness. For we see, as I told you, men will suffer for their lusts, suffer for their profit, suffer for fear, suffer for disdain. Be sure your cause be good, or else to venture goods or life upon it is the worst kind of prodigality in the world.
2. In the next place, as a good cause, so a good life, doth fit and qualify us to suffer for righteousness sake. Augustine–He dieth not the death of a martyr who liveth not the life of a Christian. An unclean beast is not fit to make a sacrifice. The persecuted and persecutor imply and suppose one another, and are never asunder.
1. But let them that suffer have the first place.
(1) And, first, knowing these terrors, as the apostle speaketh (2Co 5:11), seeing persecution is, as it were, entailed upon the righteous person, seeing there is a kind of providence and necessity it should be so, let us learn, first, as St. Peter speaketh, not to think it strange concerning this fiery trial (1Pe 4:12); not to dote too much upon this outward gilded peace and perpetuity in public profession; or, when we see these things, think some strange thing is come unto us. For what strange thing is it that wicked men should persecute the righteous? that a serpent should bite, or a lion roar? that the world should be the world, and the Church the Church?
(2) And, that we may not think it strange, let us not frame and fashion to ourselves a Church by the world.
(3) And, therefore, in the third place, let us cast down these imaginations, these bubbles of wind blown and raised up by the flesh, the worse part, which doth soonest bring on a persecution, and soonest fear one; and let us, in the place of these, build up a royal fort, build up ourselves in our most holy faith (Jud 1:20), and so fit and prepare our selves against this fiery trial.
2. And now, as we have brought the righteous person into this field of blood, and prepared and strengthened him against the horror of it; so must we bring the persecutor also, that he may behold what desolation he hath made. Why boasteth thou thyself in thy mischief, O mighty man? Psa 51:1), that thou hast sped, that thou hast divided the prey? Jdg 5:30). (A. Farindon, D. D.)
Protestants separated for Christs names sake
I. FROM WHOM CHRISTS DISCIPLES SUFFER.
II. WHAT IT IS WHICH THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST SUFFER.
1. Hatred.
2. Separation.
3. Reproach.
4. The casting out of their names.
III. THE CAUSE OF THE SUFFERING OF CHRISTS DISCIPLES. And here we meet–
1. The pretended cause. They shall cast out your name as evil; they shall fasten, as much as in them lies, all manner of calumnies upon you; and report of you, not as indeed you are, but as they who hate you would have you thought to be. But as to others, the supposed evil in the matter that Christs followers are charged with, is but a pretended cause of their being so evilly dealt withal.
2. The real cause for which they suffer. This is that which is at the bottom of all–it is for Christs sake, for their respect unto Him and His institutions, His truths and ordinances, that His disciples suffer. And this we may deduce from the following scheme.
I. It is for the truths of Christ, the doctrine owned, preached, and recommended by Him, that they thus deal with us.
II. It is for the purity of His worship, because we would serve God according to His own will, and not according to their will-worship, that they thus abhor us.
III. It is for His authoritys sake, because we dare not take the government from off His shoulders (Isa 9:6), nor pay that respect to any frail man which is only due unto Him who is God blessed for evermore (Rom 9:5)–or, if you will, it is because we dare not worship the beast–that they serve us thus. To sum up all in one–it is for the vindication of Christ in all His offices that we endure these indignities at their hands. Three consolatory inferences.
1. In that it is but from men–When men shall hate you (Mat 10:28).
2. It is for the Son of Mans sake that we thus suffer. And if He had required greater matters of us, would we not have done them?
3. Christ has pronounced such sufferers blessed–Blessed are ye
(1) It is Christs judgment on our case and condition. And He, we may truly say then, sees not as man sees.
(2) It is not a bare opinion (though His could not be erroneous) that we are blessed, but it is Christs effective sentence. His dicere is facere. Christ doth make them blessed whom He pronounces to be so; and He can make a blessed persecution. If He bless, who can curse? (Num 23:8). Lord, let them curse, but bless Thou (Psa 109:28). (P. Finke, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 22. They shall separate you] Meaning, They will excommunicate you, , or separate you from their communion. Luke having spoken of their separating or excommunicating them, continues the same idea, in saying that they would cast out their name likewise, as a thing evil in itself. By your name is meant their name as his disciples. As such, they were sometimes called Nazarenes, and sometimes Christians; and both these names were matter of reproach in the mouths of their enemies. So James (Jas 2:7) says to the converts, Do they not blaspheme that worthy name by which ye are called? So when St. Paul (in Ac 24:5) is called a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes, the character of a pestilent fellow, and, that of a mover of sedition, is joined to it; and, in Ac 28:22, the Jews say to Paul, As concerning this sect, we know that every where it is spoken against; and this is implied in 1Pe 4:14, when he says, If ye be reproached for the NAME of Christ, i.e. as Christians; agreeably to what follows there in 1Pe 4:16, If any man suffer as a Christian, &c. In after times we find Pliny, Epist. x. 97, consulting the Emperor Trajan, whether or no he should PUNISH the NAME ITSELF, (of Christian,) though no evil should be found in it. NOMEN IPSUM, etiam si flagitiis careat, PUNIATUR. See PEARCE.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
22. separate youwhether fromtheir Church, by excommunication, or from their society; bothhard to flesh and blood.
for the Son of man’ssakeCompare Mt 5:11,”for MY SAKE”;and immediately before, “for righteousness’ sake”(Lu 6:10). Christ thus bindsup the cause of righteousness in the world with the reception ofHimself.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Blessed are ye when men shall hate you,…. For the sake of Christ, and his Gospel:
and when they shall separate you from their company; either from civil conversation with them, as if they were Gentiles and uncircumcised persons; or from their religious assemblies, and so may have respect to that sort of excommunication in use, among the Jews, called or “separation”: by which persons were not only excluded from the congregation, but from all civil society and commerce: such a person might not sit nearer to another than four cubits, and this continued for thirty days; and if not discharged then, he continued thirty more t:
and shall reproach you: as heretics, apostates, and enemies to the law of Moses, as the Jews did reproach the Christians;
and cast out your name as evil; or “as of evil men”: as the Syriac and Arabic versions render it: this may have respect to the greater sorts of excommunication, used among them, called “Shammatha” and “Cherem”, by which a person was accursed, and devoted to destruction; so that our Lord’s meaning is, that the should be esteemed and treated as the worst of men, and stigmatized in the vilest manner they were capable of:
for the son of man’s sake; not for any immorality committed by them, but only for professing and, preaching that the Messiah was come in the flesh, and that Jesus of Nazareth was he; and that he who was the son of man, according to his human nature, was, the Son of God according to his divine nature.
t Vid. Maimon. Talmud Tora, c. 7. sect. 4, 5, 6.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
When they shall separate you ( ). First aorist active subjunctive, from , common verb for marking off a boundary. So either in good sense or bad sense as here. The reference is to excommunication from the congregation as well as from social intercourse.
Cast out your name as evil ( ). Second aorist active subjunctive of , common verb. The verb is used in Aristophanes, Sophocles, and Plato of hissing an actor off the stage. The name of Christian or disciple or Nazarene came to be a byword of contempt as shown in the Acts. It was even unlawful in the Neronian persecution when Christianity was not a religio licita.
For the Son of man’s sake ( ). Jesus foretold what will befall those who are loyal to him. The Acts of the Apostles is a commentary on this prophecy. This is Christ’s common designation of himself, never of others save by Stephen (Ac 7:56) and in the Apocalypse (Rev 1:13; Rev 14:14). But both Son of God and Son of man apply to him (John 1:50; John 1:52; Matt 26:63). Christ was a real man though the Son of God. He is also the representative man and has authority over all men.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Compare Mt 5:11.
Son of Man. The phrase is employed in the Old Testament as a circumlocution for man, with special reference to his frailty as contrasted with God (Num 23:19; Psa 8:4; Job 25:6; Job 35:8; and eighty nine times in Ezekiel). It had also a Messianic meaning (Dan 7:13 sq.), to which our Lord referred in Mt 24:30; Mt 26:64. It was the title which Christ most frequently applied to himself; and there are but two instances in which it is applied to him by another, viz., by Stephen (Act 7:56) and by John (Rev 1:13; Rev 14:14); and when acquiescing in the title “Son of God,” addressed to himself, he sometimes immediately after substitutes “Son of Man” (Joh 1:50, 52; Mt 26:63, 64).
The title asserts Christ ‘s humanity – his absolute identification with our race : “his having a genuine humanity which could deem nothing human strange, and could be touched with a feeling of the infirmities of the race which he was to judge” (Liddon, “Our Lord ‘s Divinity “). It also exalts him as the representative ideal man.” All human history tends to him and radiates from him; he is the point in which humanity finds its unity; as St. Irenaeus says, ‘He recapitulates it.. ‘ He closes the earlier history of our race; he inaugurates its future. Nothing local, transient, individualizing, national, sectarian dwarfs the proportions of his world embracing character. He rises above the parentage, the blood, the narrow horizon which bounded, as it seemed, his human life. He is the archetypal man, in whose presence distinction of race, intervals of ages, types of civilization, degrees of mental culture are as nothing ” (Liddon).
But the title means more. As Son of Man he asserts the authority of judgment over all flesh. By virtue of what he is as Son of Man, he must be more. “The absolute relation to the world which he attributes to himself demands an absolute relation to God…. He is the Son of Man, the Lord of the world, the Judge, only because he is the Son of God” [] .
Christ ‘s humanity can be explained only by his divinity. A humanity so unique demands a solution. Divested of all that is popularly called miraculous, viewed simply as a man, under the historical conditions of his life, he is a greater miracle than all his miracles combined. The solution is expressed in Hebrews 1.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you,” (makarioi este hotan misesosin humas hoi anthropoi) “Blessed are you all when men (humanity as a whole) hates you all,” for what you are, what you believe, and what you practice in following me, Joh 15:19.
2) “And when they shall separate you from their company,” (kai hotan aphorisosin humas) “And when they shall ostracize you all,” from their company or circle of friendship and the social, educational, and devotional privileges of the synagogue, 1Pe 2:19-20; 1Pe 3:14.
3) “And shall reproach you,” (kai oneidisosin) “And they of the world will reproach you all,” for the servant is not greater than his Lord, Joh 15:20; 1Pe 4:14.
4) “And cast out your name as evil,” (kai ekbalosin to onoma humon hos poneron) “And cast your name out as wicked,” Mat 5:11; 1Pe 4:14-16, as if it were wicked; When they black-ball you from their circle and company in social life, cast you out of the synagogue and its benefits, Joh 9:22; Joh 16:2.
5) “For the Son of man’s sake.” (eneka tou huiou tou anthropou) “For the sake of the Son of man,” for which you all stand, take a stand, and for the work He has given and the work He will give you to do, Mat 5:11-12; Joh 15:21. Paul counted such as “gain” for Christ, Php_3:7-14.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(22) Blessed are ye.See Notes on Mat. 5:10-12. The clause when they shall separate you from their company is peculiar to St. Luke, and refers to the excommunication or exclusion from the synagogue, and therefore from social fellowship, of which we read in Joh. 16:2.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Luk 6:22 . Comp. Mat 5:11 f.
] from the congregation of the synagogue and the intercourse of common life. This is the excommunication (Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. s.v.). Comp. Joh 9:22 . But that at that time there were already beside this simple excommunication one ( ) or two ( and ) still higher degrees (see, in general, Grotius on this passage; Winer, Realw.) is improbable (Gildemeister, Blendwerke d. vulgr. Ration. p. 10 ff.), and, moreover, is not to be inferred from what follows, wherein is depicted the hostility which is associated with the excommunication.
. . . .] is just the German wegwerfen, in the sense of contemptuous rejection, Plato, Pol. ii. p. 377 C, Crit. p. 46 B; Soph. O. C. 637, 642; Ael. H. A. xi. 10; Kypke, I. p. 236; but is not auctoritas (Kypke), nor a designation of the character or the faith (de Wette), nor the name of Christian (Ewald), which idea (comp. Mat 10:42 ; Mar 9:41 ) occurs in this place for the first time by means of the following . .; but the actual personal name, which designates the individual in question. Hence: when they shall have rejected your name (e.g. John, Peter, etc.) as evil, i.e. as being of evil meaning, because it represents an evil man in your person, on account of the Son of man, ye know yourselves as His disciples. The singular is distributive. Comp. Ael. H. A. 5. 4; Polyb. xviii. 28. 4; Krger, 44. 1. 7; Winer, p. 157 [E. T. 218], Others interpret wrongly: When they shall have exiled you (Kuinoel), to express which would have required ; or: when they shall have struck out your names from the register of names (Beza and others quoted by Wolf, Michaelis also), which even in form would amount to an unusual tautology with .; or: when they shall have spread your name abroad as evil (defamed you) (Grotius, Bengel, Rosenmller, Schegg), which is ungrammatical, and not to be established by Deu 22:19 ; or: when they declare it as evil (Bleek), which, nevertheless, would be very different from the classical , to cast up words, verba proferre (Hom. Il. vi. 324; Pind. Pyth. ii. 148); and, withal, how feeble and inexpressive!
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company , and shall reproach you , and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.
Ver. 22. And cast out your name ] Ubicunque invenitur nomen Calvini, deleatur, saith the Index Expurgatorius. Persecutors proscribe true professors, tanquam nequissiraos et lucis huius usura indignos. After John Huss was burnt, his adversaries got his heart, which was left untouched by the fire, and beat it with their staves. A friar preaching to the people at Antwerp, wished that Luther were there, that he might bite out his throat with his teeth, as Erasmus testifieth. (Ep. xvi. ad obtrectat. )
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
22. ] and , must not be understood of Jewish excommunication only, but of all kinds of expulsion from society.
. ., literal: your name: either your collective name as Christians , to which Peter seems to refer, 1Pe 4:14-16 ; or, your individual name.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Luk 6:22-23 . In the corresponding passage in Mt. there is first an objective didactic statement about the persecuted. then an expansion in the second person. Here all is in the second person, and the terms employed are such as suited the experience of the early Christians, especially those belonging to the Jewish Church, suffering, at the hands of their unbelieving countrymen, wrong in the various forms indicated hatred, separation, calumny, ejection. may point either to separation in daily life (Keil, Hahn) or to excommunication from the synagogue (so most commentaries) = the Talmudic . In the former case one naturally finds the culminating evil of excommunication in the last clause . . = erasing the name from the membership of the synagogue. In the latter case this clause will rather point to the vile calumnies afterwards heaped upon the excommunicated. “Absentium nomen, ut improborum hominum, differre rumoribus,” Grotius.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
separate you, &c. = cut you off.
cast out, &c. Compare Deu 22:19.
evil. Greek. poneros. App-128.
for = on account of. Greek heneka.
the Son of man. See App-98.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
22.] and , must not be understood of Jewish excommunication only, but of all kinds of expulsion from society.
. ., literal: your name:-either your collective name as Christians,-to which Peter seems to refer, 1Pe 4:14-16;-or, your individual name.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Luk 6:22. , cast out) defaming you in the way of contumelies in public and private. This is more than . The same phrase occurs, Deu 22:19.-[ , your name) viz. the designation whereby they were called, the DISCIPLES OF JESUS CHRIST.-V. g.]-, for the sake) viz. for this reason, because ye believe in the Christ, whom ye see.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
when men: Mat 5:10-12, Mat 10:22, Mar 13:9-13, Joh 7:7, Joh 15:18-20, Joh 17:14, 2Co 11:23-26, Phi 1:28-30, 1Th 2:14, 1Th 2:15, 2Ti 3:11, 2Ti 3:12, 1Pe 2:19, 1Pe 2:20, 1Pe 3:14, 1Pe 4:12-16
separate: Luk 20:15, Isa 65:5, Isa 66:5, Joh 9:22-28, Joh 9:34, Joh 12:42, Joh 16:2, Act 22:22, Act 24:5
for: Luk 21:17, Mat 10:18, Mat 10:22, Mat 10:39, Act 9:16, 1Co 4:10, 1Co 4:11
Reciprocal: 2Ch 18:7 – I hate him Son 5:7 – took Isa 51:7 – fear Jer 15:10 – curse Jer 15:15 – know Jer 37:14 – said Jer 43:3 – to deliver Mat 5:11 – for Mat 19:29 – my Mar 8:35 – for Mar 12:5 – and him Mar 13:13 – ye Luk 6:27 – do Joh 15:21 – all Act 5:41 – rejoicing Act 13:52 – were Act 16:25 – sang Rom 5:3 – but we 2Co 12:10 – for Christ’s Heb 13:13 – General Jam 1:2 – count 1Pe 2:12 – that 1Pe 4:13 – rejoice 1Pe 4:14 – reproached 1Jo 3:13 – if 3Jo 1:10 – and casteth
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
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Another word for blessed is “happy,” and the original is so rendered in many passages. These evil treatments must have been inflicted because of their devotion to the Son of man, in order for the disciples to be given this blessing.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Luk 6:22. Comp. Mat 5:10-11. Luke, however, inserts the foundation of the persecution: when men shall hate you. This hatred is manifested in what follows: exclude you, etc. This refers to expulsion, or excommunication, from the Jewish synagogue. The separation of Christianity from Judaism is hinted at thus early, immediately after the choice of the Twelve. But all exclusion from intercourse may be included.
Revile. The same word as in Matthew. Active persecution is meant.
Cast out your name as evil. The final contemptuous and malicious rejection. There is probably no reference to their name as Christians.
For the Son of mans sake. The blessing is promised only to those who endure hatred, rejection, persecution, for Christs sake.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe here, the sufferers described, the disciples; and their sufferings foretold; ye shall be hated, separated and reproached.
Hatred of Christ’s disciples is the bitter root from which persecution grows. Where there is hatred in the heart, no wonder that reviling is in the lips. And as the disciples of Christ were then for his sake hated, reproached, and cast out of the Jewish church; so now such disciples as will cordially embrace, and steadfastly hold fast, the faith delivered by our Saviour, must expect and prepare for hatred and persecution; to be separated from civil society, excommunicated for church fellowship, and all this by them who shall call themselves the guides and governors of an infallible church.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Vers. 22 and 23.Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake. 23. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy; for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.
This fourth beatitude is completely accounted for, in Luke, by the scenes of violent hostility which had already taken place. It is not so well accounted for in Matthew, who places the Sermon on the Mount at the opening of the ministry of Jesus.
In Matthew, this saying, like the preceding, has the abstract form of a moral maxim: Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. But Jesus was certainly not giving utterance here to abstract principles of Christian morality; He spoke as a living man to living men. Besides, Matthew himself passes, in the next verse, to the form of address adopted by Luke from the commencement.
The explanatory adjunct, for righteousness’ sake, in Matthew, is to be ascribed to the same cause as the similar qualifications in the preceding beatitudes.
By the pres. , happy are ye, Jesus transports His hearers directly into this immediate future.
The term , to separate, refers to exclusion from the synagogue (Joh 9:22).
The strange expression, cast out your name, is explained in very jejune fashion, both by Bleek, to pronounce the name with disgust, and by De Wette and Meyer, to refuse altogether to pronounce it. It refers rather to the expunging of the name from the synagogue roll of membership. There is not, on this account, any tautology of the preceding idea. To separate, to insult, indicated acts of unpremeditated violence; to erase the name is a permanent measure taken with deliberation and coolness., evil, as an epitome of every kind of wickedness. In their accounts of this saying, this is the only word left which Matthew and Luke have in common.
Instead of for the Son of man’s sake, Matthew says for my sake. The latter expression denotes attachment to the person of Jesus; the former faith in His Messianic character, as the perfect representative of humanity. On this point also Luke appears to me to have preserved the true text of this saying; it is with His work that Jesus here wishes to connect the idea of persecution. This idea of submission to persecution along with, and for the sake of, the Messiah, was so foreign to the Jewish point of view, that Jesus feels He must justify it. The sufferings of the adherents of Jesus will only be a continuation of the sufferings of the prophets of Jehovah. This is the great matter of consolation that He offers them. They will be, by their very sufferings, raised to the rank of the old prophets; the recompense of the Elijahs and Isaiahs will become theirs.
The reading , in the same manner, appears preferable to the received reading , in this manner. and have probably been made into one word. The imperf. (treated) indicates habit.
The pronoun , their fathers, is dictated by the idea that the disciples belong already to a new order of things. The word their serves as a transition to the woes which follow, addressed to the heads of the existing order of things.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
6:22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall {d} separate you [from their company], and shall reproach [you], and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.
(d) Cast you out of their synagogues, as John expounds in Joh 16:2 , which is the severest punishment the Church has, if the elders judge rightfully, and by the word of God.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Various forms of persecution will give way to ultimate reward and consequent joy. Note the logical progression in Luk 6:22 from hatred to ostracism to insults and finally to character assassination. Luke recorded in Acts that all these forms of persecution overtook the early Christians. The New Testament epistles also warn Christians about them (e.g., 1Jn 3:13; 1Pe 4:14; Jas 2:7). Not just the prophets of old but also Jesus Himself experienced these persecutions. Disciples can expect the same. God will vindicate them eventually and reward them for their faithfulness (cf. Luk 12:37; Luk 12:42-44; Luk 18:1-8).
The use of "Son of Man" here is significant since it combines the ideas of Jesus as God and as man. Discipleship involves commitment to Jesus as the God-man. The disciples who first heard this beatitude had not yet experienced much persecution for Jesus’ sake, but they would shortly. "In heaven" focuses on the ultimate destiny of the disciple. It is an alternative expression to "God" that Luke and Jesus used frequently.