Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 7:23
And blessed is [he,] whosoever shall not be offended in me.
23. shall not be offended ] i.e. caused to stumble. For instances of the stumbling-block which some made for themselves of incidents in our Lord’s career, see Mat 13:55-57; Mat 22:42; Joh 6:60; Joh 6:66; and compare Isa 8:14-15; 1Co 1:23 ; 1Co 2:14; 1Pe 2:7-8. The word skandalon (Latin offendiculum, Hebr. mokesh ‘snare,’ and mikshol ‘stumbling-block’) means anything over which a person falls (e.g. a stone in the road) or on which he treads and is thrown.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Luk 7:23
And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me
Taking offence at Christ
1.
Some are offended and stumble at Christ, on the pretence that there is not sufficient evidence of His Divine mission.
2. Some are offended in Christ because of circumstances connected with the Person and history of Christ Himself.
(1) His dignity and Godhead.
(2) His humiliation.
3. Some are offended in Christ because of His peculiar doctrines. They dislike mysteries, they say. But what is there which is not mysterious, when searched into very closely?
4. Some are offended at Christ because of His precepts, or the holy life which He requires them to lead.
5. Some are offended in Christ on account of the conduct of those who profess to be His followers. But, however lamentable such misconduct may be, it is unjust to impute it to Christ, or His gospel. We ought always to distinguish between the system and the inconsistencies of those who profess to hold it.
6. Many are offended in Christ because of the trials to which fidelity to Him would expose them. (James Foote, M. A.)
The blessedness of not being offended in Christ
1. A fatal stumble in the way to happiness, which many of the hearers of the gospel make. They are offended in Christ. They stumble at Him. Observe here, the object of their offence, Jesus Christ. It is at Him the world is offended. The God that made and guides the world, the Saviour that redeemed them, does not please the world. What wonder then that others cannot do it. There is something in the mystery of Christ, with which the unbeliever will always be finding fault. The world is unholy, and takes offence at Him. He is the brightness of His Fathers glory: and they, like owls and bats, are blinded at the shining Sun, and therefore carefully keep at a distance from Him. They are offended. In the Greek, scandalized. Now the blind world, by reason of their own corruption, are thus offended or scandalized in Christ. And He shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, to both the houses of Israel: for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.
2. In the text there is the happiness of those who escape this fatal stumble. I shall show–
I. What it is to stumble at Christ and be offended in Him.
II. That stumbling at Christ abounds very much in the world.
III. That they are happy indeed who are kept from being offended in Him. And then add some improvement.
I. To SHOW WHAT IT IS TO STUMBLE AT CHRIST, AND BE OFFENDED IN HIM. This is a very awful matter. For a man to die of his disease, when he might have been cured, is sad; but it is a double death for one to destroy himself by the abuse of a remedy prescribed that would have cured him infallibly. It has reference to four things in the general.
1. To the grand device of salvation through Jesus Christ, laid in the infinite wisdom of God, and fixed by the Divine counsel. And at this the unbelieving world ever stumbles, and their hearts can never fall in with it.
2. To the offer of Christ made in the gospel. To be the sinners Head, Lord, and Husband. To be their Prophet, Priest, and King, their all and instead of all. But sinners love not the offer, they stumble at His offices.
3. To the making use of Christ for all the purposes for which the Father has given Him.
4. To the practical understanding of sinners. They ever form a wrong judgment of Christ, and nothing less than overpowering grace will rectify their apprehensions of Him. This stumbling at Christ lies in these four things.
(1) The blind soul ever finds some fault in the mystery of Christ. There is always something in or about Christ that disgusts the sinner, is quite disagreeable and shocking to him. The Son of God is not a match suitable to those whose minds are not savingly enlightened.
(2) That which disgusts them, is what they cannot get over. There is something not to be found in Him, which they cannot want, and something in Him which they cannot endure. And by no art can they reconcile their hearts to it.
(3) Because they cannot get over that one thing, it keeps Christ and the soul asunder effectually. Could the Jews have got over the offence of the mean appearance of Christ, and reconciled it to their own notion of the Messiah, they would have been fond of Him, as they were while He was not come.
(4) This keeping Christ and the soul asunder, the soul is at length thereby ruined, and brought into a worse case than if Christ had never come in the way. If I had not come, says He, and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin.
II. TO SHOW THAT STUMBLING AT CHRIST ABOUNDS VERY MUCH IN THE WORLD. Let us view the heaps upon heaps that are lying broken, snared, and taken.
1. Let us take a view of those that are lying rotting above the ground in open profanity; they are kept away from Christ, even by the very far-off sight of Him and His way. There are many at this day who cry, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast their cords from us. We will not have this Man to reign over us.
2. Let us take a view of those who are lying dead upon their murdered convictions.
3. Those that are lying broken and pining away, having stumbled aver the Cross of Christ.
4. Those that are fallen away from the lusts of Christs consolation, to the fulsome breasts of the world and their own lusts. In every age there are many like the mixed multitude that came out of Egypt, who for a time kept up in the ,wilderness, but afterwards lost hopes of Canaan, and fell a lusting, and even the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? Finally, Look at those whose soul exercises have issued in putting their case in the hands of a physician of no value.
III. TO SHOW THAT THEY ARE HAPPY INDEED WHO ARE KEPT FROM BEING OFFENDED IN HIM.
1. Their eyes are opened to see that superlative glory in Christ that all the unbelieving world cannot discover.
2. Their hearts are new formed, cast into a new mould, otherwise they could never be pleased with Him. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them who believe on His name.
3. That soul cannot fail to embrace Christ, to receive Him by faith and unite with Him. For to be well pleased with Christ, is in effect to say amen to the great bargain. Uses for improvement:
1. Be convinced then of this bias of the heart, this disposition of the soul to stumble at Jesus Christ.
2. I exhort one and all of you, that have a mind for any share of eternal happiness, and particularly communicants, that you would try yourselves this night, whether you be well pleased with Christ or not. (T. Boston.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. The Arabic version renders it, “blessed is he that doubts not of me”. The Persic and Ethiopic versions both add to the text, the former rendering the words thus, “blessed is he that is not brought into offence and doubt concerning me”; and the latter thus, “blessed are they who do not deny me, and are not offended in me”: particular regard is had to the disciples of John, who both doubted of Christ as the Messiah, and were offended at his popularity and success;
[See comments on Mt 11:6].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Shall not be offended [ ] . Rev., shall find none occasion of stumbling. See on Mt 5:29. Note also the conditional not [] : “shall not find, whatever may occur.”
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “And blessed is he,” (kai makarios estin) “And blessed is (or exists),” as spiritually prosperous, Mat 16:17; Isa 42:3; Joh 15:20.
2) “Whosoever shall not be offended in me.” (hos ean me slamdalisthe en emoi) “Whoever is not offended in me,” Joh 16:1; Mat 11:6, or anyone who does not stagger or stumble because of me, 1Pe 2:8. Because of my lowly birth and gruesome and ignoble death, Isa 8:14-15.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
“And blessed is he, whoever shall find no occasion of stumbling in me.”
And then He adds that John must believe and trust Him. He will be blessed if he does not find what Jesus is doing as a stumblingblock. In other words He is saying to John. ‘Yes, I am the Coming One as you will recognise if you consider what I am doing along with the Scriptures, but you have misunderstood the present purpose in My coming. Trust Me and you will see that all will work out as God has planned.’
‘No occasion of stumbling in Me.’ John is to see Him as a sanctuary, a firm rock, not as a stumblingstone (Isa 8:14). Indeed that is why John himself has prepared the way so that none may stumble (Isa 57:14).
We should note that it is not a question of John having lost faith. He still believes that One is to come from God. He has rather partially (only partially, for he has still sent to enquire of Him) lost faith in the way Jesus is going about things. It just does not accord with his expectations. Possibly he had hoped to gee Jesus up. That is why Jesus’ reply is ‘trust me John, and consider again my activities in the light of Scripture. I know what I am doing, and blessing for you rests in recognising it too’.
Jesus’ Testimony to John (Luk 7:24-35).
His answer being sent to John Jesus turned to the waiting crowd. He did not want them to see John as a shaken reed. It was not John who had failed in the purposes of God, but the fickle hearers. And He uses the opportunity to make clear His own great superiority to John because of what He had come to do, while at the same time giving John the highest place possible to man. In doing so He brings home the wonder of the fact that the anticipated Kingly Rule of God is now here in Him. But He then rebukes those who have failed to understand. The Scribes and Pharisees are especially in mind.
We can analyse this passage as follows:
a When the messengers of John were departed, he began to say to the crowds concerning John, “What did you go out into the wilderness to behold? A reed shaken with the wind?”
b “But what did you go out to? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, those who are gorgeously apparelled, and live delicately, are in kings’ courts.”
c “But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and much more than a prophet.”
d “This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, Who will prepare your way before you.”
e “I say to you, Among those who are born of women there is none greater than John.
f “Yet he who is but little within the Kingly Rule of God is greater than he.”
e “And all the people when they heard, and the public servants, justified God, being baptised with the baptism of John, but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected for themselves the counsel of God, being not baptised of him.”
d “To what then shall I liken the men of this generation, and to what are they like? They are like children who sit in the marketplace, and call one to another, who say,
‘We piped to you, and you did not dance,
We wailed, and you did not weep.’
c “For John the Baptiser is come eating no bread nor drinking wine; and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ ”
b “The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and you say, Behold, a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of public servants and sinners!”
a “And wisdom is justified of all her children.”
The contrasts are powerful leading up to the presence of the Kingly Rule of God and its glory. In ‘a’ the people see a reed shaken in the wind, and in the parallel wisdom is justified of her children, who have totally misunderstood both John and Jesus. In ‘b’ we are told of the celebrating in king’s houses, and in the parallel the Son of Man comes celebrating for He is the King, even though misunderstood. In ‘c’ John is ‘more than a prophet’ and in the parallel he reveals it by his abstinence and they misunderstand him and see his prophetic spirit as of the devil. In ‘d’ we have the powerful Scriptural expression of the purpose of John’s coming and in the parallel the Pharisees’ expression of it in the equivalent of Nursery Rhymes. In ‘e’ there is none greater than John and in the parallel the people confirm it and the Pharisees deny it. And centrally in ‘f’ those who come under the Kingly Rule of God as expressed in Jesus, however lowly, are ‘greater’ than John, for they have entered in to what John could only look forward to.
Note the powerful progression in greatness from lowest to highest; John is not a reed that bends to the wind (a), John is not a soft courtier (b), John is a prophet and more than a prophet (c), John is the one sent to prepare the way for the Coming One (d), among men born of women there is none greater than he (e). And yet with all that the Kingly Rule of God has now come, and those who enter it are greater than John (f).
Then notice the comparisons. The people (the poor, and hungry, and weeping) have received the Kingly Rule of God and have been baptised with the baptism of John, ‘justifying God’, while the Scribes and Pharisees and their like (the rich the full and the foolishly content) have turned away from it, rejecting the counsel of God, and refusing to be baptised (e). They have done so because neither John or Jesus have danced to their tune (d). John they have accused of being devil-possessed because of his asceticism which has gone beyond what they consider necessary (c), Jesus they have accused of being worldly and frivolous because He eats and drinks and fails to totally follow their rules (b). Truly, says Jesus, wisdom is ‘justified of her children’ (a), just as God was justified of His (e).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
23 And blessed is he , whosoever shall not be offended in me.
Ver. 23. And blessed is he ] This is check to them for their preposterous zeal for John, their master. Therefore, also, our Saviour commends not John till they were departed.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
blessed = happy.
not be offended = find not (Greek. me. App-105.) anything to stumble at.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
[23. , shall not have taken offence at) Whatsoever is in Jesus Christ is good and profitable; even that very exterior (of lowliness, which Jesus had for a time, and) which gave offence to men of a perverse mind, is worthy of its own peculiar praise (has its peculiar meritoriousness).-V. g.]
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Luk 2:34, Isa 8:14, Isa 8:15, Mat 11:6, Mat 13:57, Mat 13:58, Joh 6:60-66, Rom 9:32, Rom 9:33, 1Co 1:21-28, 1Co 2:14, 1Pe 2:7, 1Pe 2:8
Reciprocal: Hos 14:9 – but Mal 3:2 – who may abide Mar 6:3 – offended Luk 14:21 – the poor 2Ti 4:2 – be
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
3
This is explained with the lexicon definition at Mat 11:6.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
No doubt our Saviour uttered these words with particular respect and reference to John’s disciples, who, out of an extraordinary zeal for the honor of their master, were prejudiced against our Saviour; but the general import of the words does show that there are many to whom Christ is a Rock of offence; the Jews were offended at the meanness of his extraction, at the poverty of his parents, at the lowness of his breeding, at his suffering condition; from their traditions they expected the Messiah should be a temporal prince, whereas the prophets declared he should be a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: be despised, and put to death.
Thus at this day many are offended at Christ; some are offended at the asserted divinity of his person, and the meritoriousness of his satisfaction. Some are offended at the sublimity of his doctrine, others at the sanctity and strictness of his laws; some are offended at the free dispensations of his grace; others that the terms of Christianity are very hard, and lay too great a restraint upon human nature: but, Blessed is he, says Christ, that shall not be offended at me: intimating, that such as, instead of being offended at Christ, do believe in him, and ground their expectations of heaven and salvation wholly upon him, are in a happy and blessed condition: Blessed is he that shall not be offended in me.