Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 12:49

I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?

49. I am come to send fire on the earth ] St John had preached “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire” and that “He should burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” The metaphor is probably to be taken in all its meanings; fire as a spiritual baptism; the refining fire to purge gold from dross, and bum up the chaff of all evil in every imperfect character; and the fire of retributive justice. There is a remarkable ‘unwritten saying’ of Christ, “ He who is near me is near the fire,” which is preserved in Ignatius, Origen, and Didymus.

what will ], if it be already kindled? ] Rather, how I would that it had been already kindled! (as in Sir 23:14 ). It may also be punctuated ‘what will I? O that it were already kindled!’ For the fire is salutary as well as retributive; it warms and purifies as well as consumes.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

I am, come … – The result of my coming will be that there will be divisions and contentions. He does not mean that he came for that purpose, or that he sought and desired it; but that such was the state of the human heart, and such the opposition of people to the truth, that that would be the effect of his coming. See the notes at Mat 10:34.

Fire – Fire, here, is the emblem of discord and contention, and consequently of calamities. Thus it is used in Psa 66:12; Isa 43:2.

And what will I … – This passage might be better expressed in this manner: And what would I, but that it were kindled. Since it is necessary for the advancement of religion that such divisions should take place; since the gospel cannot be established without conflicts, and strifes, and hatreds, I am even desirous that they should come. Since the greatest blessing which mankind can receive must be attended with such unhappy divisions, I am willing, nay, desirous that they should come. He did not wish evil in itself; but, as it was the occasion of good, he was desirous, if it must take place, that it should take place soon. From this we learn:

1. That the promotion of religion may be expected to produce many contests and bitter feelings.
2. That the heart of man must be exceedingly wicked, or it would not oppose a work like the Christian religion.
3. That though God cannot look on evil with approbation, yet, for the sake of the benefit which may grow out of it, he is willing to permit it, and suffer it to come into the world.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Luk 12:49

I am come to send fire on the earth

The fire of contention; or, the trouble that follows the gospel

1.

There may be dissension betwixt the good and the good; and hereof is the devil the author. It is the enemy that sows those tares. Christ came not to send this fire, yet He wisely tempers it to our good.

2. There may be dissension betwixt the wicked and the wicked; and hereof also is Satan author. He sets his own together by the ears, like cocks of the game, to make him sport. Hereupon he raised these great heathen wars, that in them millions of souls might go down to people his lower kingdom, Hereupon he draws ruffian into the field against ruffian, and then laughs at their vainly spilt blood. All the contentions, quarrels, whereby one evil neighbour vexeth another, all slanders, scoldings, reproaches, calumnies, are his own damned fires.

3. There is a dissension between the wicked and godly; nor yet is Christ the proper and immediate cause of this. For if it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men (Rom 12:18).

4. There is an enmity betwixt grace and wickedness, a continual combat between sanctity and sin; and this is the fire Christ came to send.

He is to some a living stone, whereupon they are built to life; to others a stone of offence, whereat they stumble to death.

I. The FIRE is discord, debate, contention, anger, and hatred against the godly.

(1) Debate is like fire; for as that of all elements, so this of all passions, is most violent.

(2) Contention is like fire, for both burn as long as there is any exhaustible matter to contend with. Only herein it transcends fire–for fire begets not matter, but consumes it; debate begets matter, hut not consumes it.

(3) As a little spark grows to a great flame, so a small debate often proves a great rent.

(4) As fire is proverbially said to be an ill master but a good servant, so anger, where it is a lord of rule, is a lord of misrule; but where it is subdued to reason, or rather sanctified by grace, it is a good servant. That anger is holy that is zealous for the glory of God.

II. The FUEL whereon this fire works is the good profession of the godly. LESSON

1. That we have need of patience, seeing we know that the law of our profession binds us to a warfare; and it is decreed upon that all that will live godly in Christ shall suffer persecution. When fire, which was the god of the Chaldeans, had devoured all the other wooden deities, Canopis set upon him a caldron full of water, whose bottom was full of holes artificially stopped with wax; which, when it felt the heat of that furious idol, melted and gave way to the water to fall down upon it, and quench it. The water of our patience must only extinguish this fire; nothing but our tears, moderation, and sufferance can abate it. But this patience hath no further latitude than our proper respect; for in the cause of the Lord we must be jealous and zealous.

2. That we must not shrink from our profession, though we know it to be the fuel that maintains this fire.

3. That we think not much of the troublous fires that are thus sent to wait upon the gospel.

4. That we esteem not the worse of our profession, but the better. It is no small comfort that God thinks thee worthy to suffer for His name. This was the apostles joy, not that they were worthy, but that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ (Act 5:41).

5. Seeing the fuel is our integrity–and this they specially strike at–let us more constantly hold together, confirming the communion of saints, which they would dissolve. (T. Adams.)

The gospel a fire

We must look for a Scriptural use of fire which shall have some bearing upon the subject of division and discord as caused by the gospel. We find such a use in the very idea of kindling. If the gospel was a mere tame and spiritless influence, a mere soothing and stroking down of human faults and passions, a mere palliative and balsam for the wounds and sufferings, for the wrongs and woes of fallen nature, it would have differed in many other respects from the thing which Jesus Christ brought us from heaven; but certainly and most evidently in this, that it would have caused no strifes and no contentions, no violences and no discords. It is because the gospel is first and above all else a fire, enkindled and sparkling, pervading and transforming the whole body and substance of the being to which it is effectually applied, that it brings with it this irritating, this provoking, this exasperating influence upon every bystanding and surrounding being which repudiate, and we will have none of it. It needs but a little reflection to make all hearts echo the statement. There are those in this day who tell us that the real gospel is a mere enforcement or suggestion, or, if you will, revelation of charity. We ask what is meant by charity, and we find that it is a sort of easy going tolerance for all creeds and all religions, a good-natured live and let live for all the philosophies, and all the philanthropies, and all the superstitions, and all the idolatries which have entered into the heart of man, as the truth and the whole of truth, the duty and the whole of duty, whether toward God or toward man. Now at present we are only concerned to say so much as this, that if the gospel had thus entered the world, if this had been the idea of it as Christ and the apostles preached it, it would have raised no hostility; it could not possibly have had the history which we know Christianity has had, as flinging abroad upon the earth division or a sword; and for this simple reason that it would not have had in it one single characteristic of fire. Men would have been perfectly willing under Nero or Domitian to let Christians alone, if they would only have glided about among their contemporaries as men whispering peace and safety, hinting at a new divinity, one among many, each having some claim, and none having an exclusive claim to the belief and faith of mankind; a new divinity to occupy one niche of a crowded and world-wide pantheon–Jesus and the resurrection. Athens would have let this alone; Rome would have let this alone; human nature would have made room for this, because it would have put oil or water in the place of fire; because it would have been a mere religion of negatives and platitudes, stirred by no storm and brightened by no ray. I came to cast fire upon the earth, and although fire has many beautiful and many comforting aspects, this is in virtue of a quality which makes it also, and before all else, penetrating and exploring, consuming and purifying, a power, first, formidable and destructive; then, secondly, an influence brightening and warming, cheering and comforting. It is thus with the sign, it is thus, also, with the thing signified.

I. THE GOSPEL A FIRE IN THE HEART. The gospel, entering a heart, begins with kindling. There is much in that heart. We speak not only of hearts which the Lord suddenly opened at Philippi or Corinth to listen to the preaching of a new faith, when all round and all antecedent had been Jewish or Pagan; we speak of hearts to which gospel sounds, whether of word or of worship, are but too familiar, and we say that, even in these, if a new reality is ever by the grace of God given to the gospel, there is much fuel ready for the burning, much as to which the gospel would be nugatory if it did not burn up–probably many known sins, certainly a multitude of frivolities and vanities, which to let alone would be to say peace where there is none; which to let alone would be to live the life in the sleep of death, but which to assail is to bring a sword between soul and spirit, to proclaim war to the knife against many inveterate habits, and to cause a revolution in the most cherished tenacities of the being; and it is just in proportion as this first office of fire is faithfully and effectively done that any other can be safe or even true. Thoroughness in yielding ourselves to the purifying, is the condition alike of the illuminating and the warming, and the comforting. It is just where the fire is not allowed to consume that it refuses to burn brightly for companionship or for cheering.

II. THE GOSPEL A FIRE IN THE WORLD. This, which is the real struggle of the gospel in the heart, is also its real struggle in the world. If the gospel would begin and end with comforting, it would be welcomed everywhere; if it would settle down as a mere pleasant guest in the chamber and at the social table, making all easy all round, saying or sounding as if it said, Live as you list and all shall be peace at the last, nothing could be more popular; then it would have the promise, in commonest parlance, of two worlds–the life that is and the life that shall be. It is this uncompromising character, this call for decision and for a whole heart, this demand for a life wholly given, in purpose and affections to the Lord who bought it, which makes the gospel a sword for such as will not have it for a fire; and yet, brethren, it is just this uncompromising character which makes it a power, and which makes it a charm, and which makes it a gospel. Oh, we could any of us construct a religion which should cry peace when there is none; we could any of us make a gospel, using a few phrases and elements of the real one, which should be accommodating, and which should be complimentary, and which should be plausible, and which, therefore, should be fashionable; and which, just in the same degree, would leave every sore festering, and every woe desolating, and every vice and crime destroying, of the old Adam and of the fallen and of the sin-spoilt man. But what should we have done, when we had done all this to perfection? We should not have evoked one grand heroism such as lies at the bottom even of the ruined humanity; we should not have evoked one echo from the slumbering temple of the God-made man; we should have done nothing whatever towards the actual want, and the real hunger, and the one despair of the soul, which feels that its true wretchedness is separation from God, and that its true cure would be the getting back home. I am come to send fire on the earth. So Jesus speaks; and we, who have one breath of God in us, feel that fire is the element wanting. We want the water of cleansing, and we want the wind of scourging, and we want the earthquake of demolishing; and oh, what we want above all, is the fire which does all these things, and which yet adds to them all the grace of transforming, and the grace of kindling, and the grace of inspiring, and the grace of enabling, and the grace of the new life. It is the fire which has made Christianity great; it is not the mere washing with the water of a new innocence; it is not the light of the lamp of information even as to the mysteries of grace and redemption: it is the enkindling of Christian souls with the fire of love, and the fire of zeal, and the fire of an out-spoken boldness, and the fire of even an impatient and intolerant hatred of misery and wickedness. It is this which has done great things in the earth in the name of Christ and God; it is this which has demolished idols; it is this which has at last toppled down slavery; it is this which has made missionaries strong, and martyrs brave, and churches militant; it is this which has provoked indeed the rage of the world and devil; but it has also shown enemies, open and secret, that greater is He that is with us than he that is in the world. I am come to send fire upon the earth, and what would I, but that it were already kindled? It is kindled now. Ages and generations have lived in the blaze of that fire, and Christ, who knows what is in man, loves that fire better than the tame sluggishness, the lifeless torpor, the false peace which prevails everywhere where that fire comes not. Already kindled! Is it kindled round us? Is it kindled in us? Are we a stagnant, torpid, lifeless multitude? or, are we of the kindled, inspired, living, and life-breathing few? For few still are they in whom this Spirit of God is, not for selfish comfort, but for inspired power. Let us hazard some little, let us encounter some little, that we may please Him who said–Oh, that it were already kindled, because He loved the fire rather than the chill, because He loved the enthusiasm rather than the half-heartedness. (Dean Vaughan.)

The fire which Christ kindles on earth

1. A fire which warms what is cold.

2. Purifies what is impure.

3. Consumes what is evil. (Van Oosterzee.)

The controversy which Christ has brought on earth

1. How we are to wish for it.

2. How we are to fear it.

3. How we are to endure it. (Schenkal.)

Suffering, a baptism

For the Christian a threefold baptism is necessary.

1. The water baptism of sprinkling.

2. The spiritual baptism of renewal.

3. The fire baptism of trial. (Van Oosterzee.)

The discord which Christ has brought upon earth

1. A surprising phenomenon, if we look at–

(1) The King (Psa 72:1-20.).

(2) The fundamental law of the kingdom of God (Joh 13:35).

2. An explicable phenomenon if we direct our eye to

(1) The severity of the gospel.

(2) The sinfulness of the human heart.

3. A momentous phenomenon. This strife is a proof of the high significance, and means for the establishment, the purification, and the victory of Christianity. (Van Oosterzee.)

The truth in the Church

I. Let us consider THE DESIGN OF OUR LORDS ADVENT, AS HERE ANNOUNCED BY HIMSELF. Indeed, each peculiar aspect in which our Lords work is viewed by Him is a characteristic variety, which tends both to enlarge and rectify our views on the subject. When He contemplates His work in relation to the fallen condition of our race, His announcement of His design is this–I am come to seek and to save the lost. When He views it in relation to the redemption He was to accomplish, He speaks of it as being a ransom price for many. When He views it in its relation to God, His exclamation to the Father is I have come to glorify Thee on the earth. When He viewed it in regard to Himself, His representation was, that He had come into this far country to get Himself a kingdom. And when He viewed it in relation to the world at large, He announced Himself as the Light of the world–as a light to lighten the Gentiles–as the Bread that came down from heaven, of which if a man eat he will never die –as having living Water to bestow, of which whosoever drinketh shall never thirst as Him who had come not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. In all these representations the same great idea is either expressed or shadowed forth-namely, that the mystery of our Lords incarnation and life and passion had no other design, nothing less than the undoing of all that sin had produced in our world–that out of that dark and formless chaos into which the whole spiritual creation here had been thrown, He might produce a new order of things, where for man there should be purity, dignity, and joy; and for God, the re-establishment in glory and in majesty of His full authority over the heart and the conscience of man. The announcement of our Lords passion and work given in the passage before us, belongs to the last of the classes above enumerated; those, namely, in which its general bearings on the ignorant, the guilty creatures of our race, is proclaimed. In the Old Testament prophecy, the advent of the Messiah had been described as an event which should result in the purging away from the Church of God of all filth, by the spirit of burning; in the utterance of the prophetic voice it had been foretold of the Messiah, that He should sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, to purify the sons of Levi, and purge them like gold and silver, that they should offer unto God an offering in righteousness. In these passages the idea of purification and refinement is most distinctly brought before us by the symbolic language in which the design of the Messiahs mission is described; and it is in reference apparently to the same idea, applying to Himself this description of the Messiah, that our Lord uses the words now before us. By some interpreters, indeed, their application has been restricted to those dissensions and fiery controversies which the religion of Christ has, through the hostility of mankind, been instrumental in producing in our world. And to this they have been led by the allusion our Lord Himself makes to these dissensions in subsequent verses of this chapter. But this interpretation can hardly be admitted, for these dissensions and controversies are not necessary, far less essential, parts of our Lords work, but clearly the results springing out of the evil state of mans heart, and it cannot be to the collateral and accidental results of the circumstances among which He comes, that our Lord alludes I am come to send fire on the earth. It does appear a very weak and impotent interpretation of such an assertion to represent it as meaning nothing more than the quarrels among men, which may be its result. By the fire here spoken of, which our Lord had said He came to send on the earth, is to be understood that purifying, remodelling, renovating power which He came to diffuse through the mass of our race. He came not merely to deliver a message, and to do by it an appointed work, but by means of that message and in consequence of that work, to set the world on fire. He came to revolutionize the world by infusing into it a new element of spiritual life and activity. In short, to melt and fuse the whole fabric of earthly relations, that out of its elemental parts His plastic hand may construct a more perfect form of being, and thereby cover this earth which God has made with a race of beings worthier of Him who made them, and of that fair and fertile world which He has given them to inhabit. This great change which our Lord had come to commence finds its basis in His sacrificial work; and the means by which it is to be carried forward are the promulgation of the mighty truths connected with that work. So long as sin remains, evil, and gloom, and sorrow, must overhang our earth: but let sin be removed, and the removal of the cause will be followed by the cessation of all the evils the presence of that cause has occasioned and perpetuated. Now the only way in which sin can be removed from the conscience of the man by whom it has been committed, is by his being fully forgiven all the guilt of sin, and perfectly cleansed of all the pollution of sin, by God. But will God, can God, thus purify the sinner? The answer comes to us from the cross of Christ. The fire which consumed the sacrifice upon that mystic altar was fiercer than the fire of Tophet; but it was a fire that cleanses, that brings renovation and purity to a world of polluted and perishing sinners. As it was necessary that this fire should be kindled first on the altar of atonement, so it is only as our torch is irradiated on that altar, that we can spread the sacred flame through the world. The only means by which we can hope to ransom and purify our fallen race, is by making known to each individual of it the great facts and doctrines connected with the sacrificial work of Christ. All other means will prove inefficient. Thus is this doctrine adapted to the great objects for which it was designed. The religion of Jesus Christ has been sent forth by its great Author, as a mighty fire, to purify and remodel the world. In accomplishing this great work, Christianity begins with individuals, and by successive conquests over the corruptions and guilt of individual souls, advances to the salvation of multitudes, and the renovation of the race. The fire which Christ sent into the world is to enwrap the whole world in its purifying blaze; but then it i to do so only by being kindled in heart after heart, and warming and sanctifying home after home. And wherever this sacred fire is experienced, it will stretch forth its lambent flame to fasten on new objects, and accomplish new transformations. It comes not like the lightning, appearing suddenly in the east, and darting instantaneously to the west. It comes with a slow, steady, and advancing flame. At first its light falls amidst the corruptions of some solitary path; but gradually it extends its light, and heat, and purifying influence, until, passing into a mighty conflagration, it encircles whole countries and continents. As she advances to the accomplishment of her purpose, and attainment of her triumph, she must, of necessity, come into collision with much that men have been accustomed to value and to revere. Many of the forms of social life, many of the bulwarks of earthly policy, many of the institutions of human intercourse, are the mere offspring of sensual taste and habits, or, at the best, mere artificial contrivances for the effecting of a compromise between the good and the evil that are strangely mixed up in the tissue of our mortal life. Every advance Christianity makes in our world must be connected with conflict. Not a single bosom is surrendered to her occupancy without a struggle.

II. I have now to direct your attention for a little to OUR KORDS EXPRESSION OF ARDENT DESIRE FOR THE COMMENCEMENT OF THAT WORK WHICH HE THUS CAME INTO THE WORLD ACCOMPLISH: I am come to send fire on the earth: I would that it were already kindled! If you examine the chronology of the gospel history, you will find that the discourses of which my text forms a part were delivered by our Lord within a very short time–three or four weeks, at the very utmost, of His crucifixion. As Heuttered these words, then, He had His sufferings full in view, and was in the immediate prospect of entering upon those scenes of unparalleled agony through which He passed to the accomplishment of His work. With the feelings that then occupied His bosom these words are in full harmony. The considerations which thus induced our Saviour so ardently to desire the accomplishment of His work are to be sought, doubtless, in the consequences that were to result from the accomplishment of that work; and though these can never be present to our minds with the force that occupied His, yet it may be permitted to us without presumption to institute an inquiry into these considerations, and the effect it may be supposed they would have in causing Him thus to long for their realization. Allow me, then, to refer to a few of the consequences of the kindling of that fire the Saviour came to send upon the earth.

1. And first, the diffusion of Christianity stands closely connected with the promotion of the Divine glory in the world. In consequence of the prevalence of sin, the glory of God, as manifested in this portion of His universe, has been fearfully obscured.

2. In the diffusion of Christianity, our Lord traced the fulfilment of His own gracious purpose to men, and the success of His own work in their behalf; and this prospect naturally prompted the desire expressed in the words before us. When our Lord became incarnate, and entered on the work of His humiliation, it was in order that by means of that work He might bring to pass the design and purpose which had eternally occupied the Infinite mind. Is it to succeed, or is it to fail? He anticipated the joy of the angels, as they witnessed sinner after sinner converted unto God. He foretasted–a foretaste peculiar to Himself–the joy of bringing many sons unto glory. And as all these prospects in bright manifestation and in firm assurance pressed on His view, who can wonder that His bosom should have thrilled with ardent desire, and His cry should have been with regard to that fire, by which these results were to be secured–I would that it were already kindled?

3. Our Lord saw in the extension of Christianity, a vast increase to the purity and moral goodness of the world; and this filled His mind with delight and intense desire that the work were already begun. To a mind possessing any degree of intellectual vigour, and not altogether destitute of right moral feeling, the state of a thinking, accountable, and immortal being like man, lying under the polluting, degrading, destroying power of sin, cannot fail to raise emotions of the deepest pain. And knowing that in that purifying fire He had come to send on the earth was to be found the only real and effectual remedy for this sad state of things, who can wonder that His sacred bosom should have expanded with an ardent desire which gave itself vent in the exclamation–I would that it were already kindled!

4. The bearing of His religion on the happiness of mankind must also have actuated the Saviour in desiring its speedy and steady diffusion. When we cast our eye over the condition of our race, we behold man universally engaged in the eager pursuit of happiness, often baffled in the pursuit, and constrained in disappointment of spirit to exclaim–Who will show us any good? But in the gospel of Jesus Christ there is a panacea for mans ills, and an antidote for mans sorrows. Wherever it spreads, the people that sat in darkness see a great light, and upon them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, a light shines.

5. The force of these considerations is greatly enhanced by the fact, that the triumphs of Christianity are progressive, and that her conquests are perpetual. All nations shall be blessed in Christ, and all nations shall call Him blessed. Nor shall this continual extension of territory in any degree endanger the stability of the kingdom itself. With many earthly empires the shouts of their victorious arms have passed into the knell of their approaching doom. Rome fell through the vastness of her dominions, and the very multitude of her conquests. Spain fell from her proud preeminence among the nations of Europe, from the time that her chivalry gained for her new empires on the other side of the Atlantic. And Britain, invincible within her own sea-bound shores, has ere now found the same defeat in consequence of the wide extent of her foreign possessions. But no such contingencies threaten the empire of Christ. However vast, or however far it spreads, the eye of Omniscience watches over it, and the arm of Omnipotence secures its safety. It is emphatically and absolutely an everlasting kingdom. All things else with which man has to do are destined to decay. Amidst the ruins of earthly kingdoms, amidst the dissolution of the terrestrial system, amidst the wild crash of worlds it shall remain unshaken and unharmed; the Lord thy God, the Lord thy lawgiver, the Lord thy judge, He will save thee! How glorious the prospect thus expanded before us! What a gush of exhilarating and triumphant emotion is it calculated to excite in every renewed and holy mind! With what feelings of unutterable delight must it have been associated in the mind of the Redeemer, who could view it in all its vastness, and appreciate it in all its glory! and with what earnestness must He have entertained the desire that the fire by whose sacred flame all this was to be effected were already kindled! Oh, my hearers, let us see to it that the fire burns in our own bosoms, and that there it is carrying forward its salutary work. God forbid that we who are seeking the spread of the gospel throughout the world, should either be destitute of its power, or but slightly influenced by its spirit. The times in which we live, demand that we should be men of earnestness, energy, and perseverance. Those, sirs, are not times for the mere idleness of religious profession, for the more refinements and enjoyments of Christian association. (W. L. Alexander, D. D.)

The fire of contention

Upon a close examination of the text, and a comparison with the following verses, there can be no doubt whatever, that the sending fire upon earth, indicates nothing less than what it at the first glance appears to import, namely, the production of great and violent contention and animosity. When the religion of a crucified Saviour was originally made known to the world, greatly varied: even within a single family circle, was the reception which it met with. Some, when they had heard the word, received it with joy, and cried out, with the Ethiopian, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? While others, only observing of the preacher of Jesus and the Resurrection, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods, persisted in their ancient course, and loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. Placed in such circumstances, it was almost impossible for the Christian members of a household, with whatever circumspection and caution they might walk, to avoid giving offence. Though they kept silence, and refrained even from good words, their conduct was a tacit reproach to their connections. When they refused to offer the drink-offerings of those dumb idols, or to make mention of their name with their lips, they sufficiently declared their opinion of those that did it, as of men labouring under gross delusion. Now we may observe how sensitive to the slightest apparent contempt of their opinions the spiritually ignorant and superstitious are. Again, the Christians could not, on any terms, partake of the pleasures which their unconverted friends chiefly esteemed; many of them were unclean, and many of them were cruel, teeming with all abomination and pollution. They were compelled, therefore, to stand aloof in their festivities, and as children of light, to have no communion with the works of darkness. This must, according to all experience and observation of the characteristics of weak and vicious men, have contributed in no small degree to engender a spirit of bitterness. The slave of vice cannot bear the eye that looks mournfully on his evil indulgences. Finally, Christianity incapacitated the professor from attaining to many worldly honours and emoluments, and hence another struggle while a parents ill-judging affection endeavoured to impose upon a child conformity to existing iniquities, that his prospects in this life might not be blighted, and the other as resolutely persisted in the determination to witness a good confession before men, lest his prospects in eternity should suffer a much more fatal blight. How soon such contentions might call into action the most malignant passions of the heart, may be judged from examples nearer to our own times, in which a rational resistance to unreasonable, though originally kind desires, has stirred up the most inveterate hostility. But in all this we only see the natural consequences of a pure and undefiled religion coming in contact with the evil passions of mans unconverted heart. There was nothing hostile to the peace of the world in Christianity itself, and it became the innocent cause of much disquietude and tumult, merely because man would not suffer man to enjoy liberty of conscience. (W. H. Marriott, M. A.)

The gospel as afire

How often we have found the air on a summers day hot, oppressive, and stagnant, Not a breath of wind stirs the leaves which hang parched or weltering in the burning rays of the sun. The very birds are silent, as though unable to breathe. Suddenly the thunder peals, and the great rain-drops patter upon the ground. Then the storm bursts forth in all its fury. Flash succeeds flash with startling rapidity, the thunder rocks the very buildings in which we are sheltered, and the rain descends in a fierce deluge. At length the storm ceases, and then what a change has passed over the scene! Before, there was a peace; but it was the peace of inanimation and death; now there is a peace, but it is the peace of blessed life. The air is cool and fresh, the trees assume their verdant hues, the flowers give forth their sweetest fragrance, the birds make the groves echo again with their glad melody; in a word, all nature is peaceful with a deep exuberant vitality. And so with the gospel; it arouses men from their deadly lethargy, producing sorrow, distress, and anguish; but after this there comes a peace, even the peace of God, which passeth all understanding. (O. Spenceley.)

Fire purifies

I remember, some years ago, when I was at Shields, I went into a glass-house; and, standing very attentive, I saw several masses of burning glass of various forms. The workman took a piece of glass and put it into one furnace, then he put it into a second, and then into a third. I said to him, Why do you put it through so many fires? He answered, Oh, sir, the first was not hot enough, nor the second; therefore we put it into a third, and that will make it transparent. (G. Whitefield.)

An aggressive gospel

Fire is the life and the light of the world, and, as a symbol, deserves to be studied. Its power has never been ascertained. Every effort made to subdue it is attended with the consciousness of its unconquerable nature. It melts iron, burns marble, changes granite into dust, feeds on wood, evaporates water; and yet, when properly used and ministered unto, it is the health and life of the world. Such is the gospel. Receive it into the soul, and it changes the miser into the benefactor, the slothful into the diligent, and the lukewarm into the fiery apostle who, like Jeremiah, finds a fire in his bones which will consume if it finds not vent.

1. The purpose is avowed–I am come to send fire. Not to bring, but send.

2. This fire is sent. It is here, and is yet to be more manifest.

3. The outlook is one of endeavour. Christ is organizing for victory.

4. The urgent need of the Church to receive this fire.

5. Instead of being alarmed when the gospel produces excitement, we are to look for it.

6. Christ longs to have the fire kindled.

7. Behind every fervent prayer is the unreached desire of Christ.

8. The plan is fixed, the fire is to be kindled in the individual heart. (J. D.Fulton, D. D.)

The question of Christian missions stated and explained

I. THE MISSION OF CHRIST WAS UNDERTAKEN FOR THE MOST IMPORTANT ENDS.

1. To present an atonement to the Divine government for the sin of man.

2. To overthrow the rebellious power which had usurped the dominion of this world.

3. The redemption of innumerable multitudes of our race from the consequences of their apostasy.

4. The formal assumption and complete discharge of His mediatorial characters.

II. THESE ENDS COULD ALONE BE PROSECUTED AT A MOST PAINFUL EXPENSE.

1. We cannot conceal the fact that Christianity may affect political systems.

2. It is further admitted that Christianity must produce a variety of innovations.

3. Very unnatural divisions in society have apparently been fomented by Christianity.

4. Christianity must be viewed in connection with those persecutions which it has experienced.

5. Christianity has drawn forth some acts, on the part of its adversaries, which have more effectually exposed the depravity of human nature than any other occasion could have admitted.

6. The religion of Jesus Christ has very frequently been perverted to designs most estranged from its character, and abhorrent to its spirit.

7. The augmentation of moral responsibility has necessarily attended the establishment of Christianity.

III. THE IMPORTANCE OF THESE ENDS JUSTIFIED THE VAST EXPENSE NECESSARY TO THEIR ACQUISITION.

1. Here, then, we find an apology for our warmest zeal and firmest courage, in extending Christianity. We but imbibe the spirit and follow the steps of our Exemplar.

2. And here, too, we learn that this unconquerable temper, this inexpressible ardour, is of the first importance in every department of missions. Nothing half-hearted should be betrayed in our institutions at home, or efforts abroad.

3. In this spirit of unshrinking courage, and unabating ardour, let us proceed. We carry the commission of Him who came to send fire on the earth. We may blow the flame, we may spread the conflagration; what will he, if it be already kindled? All must yield to the gospel of Christ or be consumed by its progress. (R. W. Hamilton, D. D.)

Fire–the want of the tinges

I. CONSIDER THE HISTORY OF THE GOSPEL.

1. It begins with a revelation, contained in the Bible. Bending over the page, we are struck with the extraordinary doctrines herein revealed. As we believe the doctrine of Divine love, we feel it to be a truth which sets the soul on fire with joy, gratitude, and love.

2. I have commenced the history of the gospel with the book; but, remember, the gospel does not long remain a mere writing; it is no sooner thoroughly read and grasped than the reader becomes, according to his ability, a preacher. We will suppose when a preacher whom God has truly called to the work proclaims thin gospel, you will see for a second time that it is a thing of fire. Observe the man! If God hath sent him, he is little regardful of the graces of oratory; he counts it sheer folly that the servants of God should be the apes of Demosthenes and Cicero; he learns in another school how to deliver his Masters message. He comes forward in all sincerity, not in the wisdom of words, but with great plainness of speech, and tells to the sons of men the great message from the skies. The one thing of all others he abhors, is to deliver that message with bated breath, with measured cadence, and sentences that chill and freeze as they fall from ice-bound lips. I would not utter too sweeping a sentence, but I will venture to say that no man who preaches the gospel without zeal is sent of God to preach at all.

3. In tracing this history of the gospel, I would have you observe the effect of the preaching of such a one as I have described. While he is delivering the truth of a crucified Saviour, and bidding men repent of sin and believe in Christ, while he is pleading and exhorting with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, do you see the fire flakes descend in showers from on high! One of them has dropped just yonder and fallen into a heart that had been cold and hard before; observe how it melts all that was hard and iron-like, and the tears begin to flow from channels long dried up.

4. Opposition is aroused next. There is no good doing if the devil does not howl.

II. Secondly, LET US STUDY MORE CAREFULLY THE QUALITIES OF THE GOSPEL AS FIRE.

1. First, fire and the gospel are notable for ethereal purity.

2. The gospel is like fire, again, because of its cheering and comforting influence. He that hath received it finds that the cold of this world no longer pinches him; he may be poor, but the gospels fire takes away the chilliness of poverty; he may be sick, but the gospel gives his soul to rejoice even in the bodys decay; he may be slandered and neglected, but the gospel honours him in the sight of God. The gospel, where it is fully received into the heart, becomes a Divine source of matchless consolation. Fire, in addition to its warmth, gives light. The flaming beacon guides the mariner or warns him of the rock: the gospel becomes to us our guide through all the darkness of this mortal life; and if we cannot look into the future, nor know what shall happen to us on the morrow, yet by the light of the gospel we can see our way in the present path of duty, ay, and see our end in future immortality and blessedness. Life and immortality are brought to light by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

3. A third likeness between the gospel and fire is its testing qualities. No test like fire. That piece of jewelry may seem to be gold; the colour is an exact imitation; you could scarcely tell but what it was the genuine metal. Ay, but the melting pot will prove all; put it into the crucible, and you will soon see. Thus in this world there are a thousand things that glitter, things which draw admirers, that are advocated in the name of philanthropy and philosophy, and I know not what beside; but it is wonderful how different the schemes of politicians and the devices of wise men appear when they are once put into the fining pot of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

4. A further parallel between the gospel and the fire lies in their essential aggressiveness.

5. Our religion is like fire, again, because of its tremendous energy and its rapid advance. Who shall be able to estimate the force of fire? Our forefathers standing on this side the river, as they gazed many years ago upon the old city of London wrapped in flame, must have wondered with great astonishment as they saw cottage and palace, church and hall, monument and cathedral, all succumbing to the tongue of flame, tit must be a wonderful sight, if one could safely see it, to behold a prairie rolling along its great sheets of flame, or to gaze upon Vesuvius when it is spouting away at its utmost force. When you deal with fire, you cannot calculate; you are among the imponderables and the immeasurables. I wish we thought of that when we are speaking of religion. You cannot calculate concerning its spread. How many years would it take to convert the world? asks somebody. Sir, it need not take ten minutes, if God so willed it; because as fire, beyond all reckoning, will sometimes, when circumstances are congenial, suddenly break out and spread, so will truth. Truth is not a mechanism–and does not depend upon engineering. God may, when He wills it, bring all human minds into such a condition that one single text such as this, This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, may set all hearts on a blaze. Vainly do we reckon the missionary costs so much, and only so many can therefore be sent. Ay, but God works most by weakest means full often, and sometimes achieves by his poorest saints works which He will not perform by those who have every visible appliance.

6. Once more, the gospel resembles fire in this, that it will ultimately prevail.

III. Lastly, if the gospel be thus like fire, LET US CATCH THE FLAME.

1. If this fire shall really burn within us, we shall become from this very moment fearless of all opposition. That retired friend will lose the strings which bind his tongue; he will feel that he must speak as God shall bid him; or if he cannot speak, he will act with all his might in some other way to spread abroad the savour of Immanuels name. That coward who hid his head, and would not own his profession, when the fire burns, will feel that he had rather court opposition than avoid it.

2. If we catch this flame we shall, after having defied all opposition, weary utterly of the mere proprieties of religion which at this present time crush down like a nightmare the mass of the religious world.

3. If we shall catch this fire, we shall not only become dissatisfied with mere proprieties, but we shall all of us become instant in prayer. Day and night our soul will go up with cries and moanings to God, O God, how long, how long, how long? Wilt Thou not avenge Thine own elect? Will not Thy gospel prevail? Why are Thy chariots so long in coming? Why doth not Christ reign? Why is not the truth triumphant? Why dost Thou suffer idolatry to rule and priestcraft to reign? Make haste, O God, grasp Thy two-edged sword and smite, and let error die and let truth win the victory! It is thus we shall be always pleading if this fire burns in our spirits.

4. This will lead us to eager service. Having this fire in us, we shall be trying to do all we can for Christ. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The fire Christ kindles

I. Here we have one of those statements of Christ which have been and still is made use of by superficial, ill-disposed unbelievers, IN ORDER TO BRING HIM AND HIS RELIGION INTO DISCREDIT. If all His many statements, declarations, and utterances, which inculcate love and good-will to mankind, leave them cold and indifferent; those which speak of the destructive tendency of His religion inflame them with hatred and malice towards Him, and the object of His life and work. As soon as they hear that Christ Himself said, I am come to send fire on the earth, and again, Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, I am come not to send peace, but the sword, their anger is uncontrollable. With an air of righteous indignation, they exclaim, All this Christs followers have faithfully carried out to the detriment of mankind. To justify their assertion, they refer us to the persecution and bloodshed instigated and perpetrated by those who bore His name, and strenuously maintain that all was done in His name and by His authority. These implacable enemies of Christ and His religion do not shrink from making Christ Himself responsible for all the cruel and barbarous deeds wrought at one time or other by professing Christians. They have indeed the testimony of history on their side, where all such cruelties and inhumanities have been recorded and transmitted to posterity. But we have a right to demand of those who sit in judgment over others, not to be so unjust as to make Christ and His religion responsible for them. We shall, no doubt, at once be told to read our text, for in it Christ expressly says that He came to send fire on the earth; and we shall be asked to read further on, where He says that He did not come to send peace on earth, but the sword. Of course Christ speaks of fire and the sword, but by no means in the sense His enemies or mistaken friends would have it. In the ordinary life fire need not be a destructive element, nor the sword a weapon with which to kill others; for fire has also many very useful qualities, it imparts heat and light, and the sword is wielded to defend and uphold justice. That Christ employs these figuratively, and as such representing forcibly great and important spiritual truths, there is not a shadow of doubt. The fire He means is no other than His holy love, kindling within man a sacred flame of devotion for everything good, true, and just; and the sword He speaks of is no other than the Spirit of God, who wields the mighty word of God.

II. CHRISTIANITY IS FIRST OF ALL A DESTRUCTIVE POWER BEFORE IT CAN BE THAT WHICH IT IS IN REALITY AND TRUTH, VIZ., A DIVINE POWER TO RENEW AND SANCTIFY MAN. It would not have been a Divine power for the spiritual good of man had it not such a twofold tendency and effect; for as man has become despoiled by sin, Gods holy love manifested in Christ has first of all to destroy this pernicious element in him before it can effectually accomplish its Divine mission for him. The fire Christ kindles in the heart of fallen, sinful man is meant to consume all ungodliness and unholiness, all the idols that may be enshrined there; and if our own will and consent allow this work to be effected, the sacred fire of love, of devotion to God and our fellow-men, will be kindled in the purified and sanctified temple of our heart. If Christs love is, however, obstinately resisted, the unholy fire will remain burning within man, never to be extinguished. Christs fire, however, destroys, in order to rebuild within us a glorious temple crowned with the inscription, Holiness unto the Lord.

III. If Christianity were only a destructive power, we could have gladly dispensed with it, for there are enough of such powers and agents at work in nature and society, in the individual and among nations. THE PRIME OBJECT OF CHRISTIANITY IS, FORTUNATELY FOR THE HUMAN RACE, NOT TO DESTROY MANS LIFE, BUT TO SAVE IT; not to separate man from man, but to unite all men closely and intimately by one bond of love as brothers of one common Father in heaven. Christianity, as a new life-giving power, only destroys that which hinders mans growth in holiness, godliness, and righteousness, thus retarding his spiritual development and progress heavenwards. The holy fire burning on the altar of a believing Christians heart not only consumes all impurity in him, but kindles a sacred flame of love and devotion in him towards God and the true well-being of his fellow-man. (A. Furst, D. D.)

Missionary enthusiasm

This fire which our Lord came to send was a Divine enthusiasm inspired by His Spirit for the glory of God, for the highest good of man–an enthusiasm enwrapping like flame the faculties of soul and body, transfiguring weak and commonplace natures by the purifying and invigorating energy of a supernatural force. I can do all things, said St. Paul, through Christ that strengtheneth me. This enthusiasm has, undoubtedly, many other outlets, many other effects. The missionary spirit is one of its chief, its noblest manifestations–the spirit which burns to carry the name and kingdom of Christ wherever there are souls to be saved and blest. What, then, let us ask, are the elements which go to make up the missionary spirit? Or, rather, what are the convictions by which the sacred flame is kept alive within the soul? There are, I apprehend, three main elements, three ruling and inspiring convictions, at the root of missionary enthusiasm.

1. Of these, the first is a deep sense of the certainty and importance of the truths of the gospel. The apostles were the first missionaries, and we see in their writings how deeply they felt both the importance and the certainty of their message. St. Paul speaks of preaching among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. St. Paul prays that the Ephesians may have the eyes of their understanding so enlightened as to know what is the hope of their glory, and what the riches of their calling and their inheritance among the saints. St. Pauls language has sometimes been spoken of as hyperbolical and inflated, but only so because the great living facts which were so present to the apostles soul are hidden from the soul of the speaker. If, my brethren, it be indeed true that the everlasting Son of God left the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, and took our poor nature upon Him, and had a human mother, and lived on this earth for thirty-three years, and then died in pain and shame to rise from death, to rise from the grave in which He was laid, to return, still robed in the nature in which He had died and risen, to the glories of His heavenly home–if this be a fact, it is trivial to speak of it as an important fact. It distances in point of importance everything else that has occurred in human history. What in the world are all the triumphs, all the failures, all the humiliations, all the recoveries, of which human history speaks, in comparison with this? What heart have we to dwell on them when we have really stood face to face in spirit with- the incarnation and the passion of the Son of God? This is what men like Xavier or Martin have felt; and this sense of the overwhelming importance of the facts of redemption has not, in the cases of these eminent missionaries, been weakened by any suspicion whatever, created by a sceptical atmosphere of thought around them, about the truth of the facts. The apostles had had no doubts about the facts. I know whom I have believed, cries St. Paul. We have not followed cunningly devised fables, protests St. Peter. We were eye-witnesses of His majesty. That which we have seen and heard, says St. John, declare we unto you, for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and declare unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us. In the mind of the apostles the truths of the Christian revelation centred, every one of them, in the living person of Christ–God and man; and an utter devotion to His person, based on a profound conviction of the reality in detail and as a whole of those truths, was at the root of that spirit of enterprising charity which went forth to convert the world. In the heart of those first missionaries, as so constantly since, the crucified Son of God whispered daily, hourly, that He might keep alive within them the sacred flame: Behold what I have borne for thee! What hast thou done for Me?

2. And the second conviction which goes to make up missionary enthusiasm is a sense of the need which man has of revealed truth. The apostles were possessed by this element also of that sacred flame which Christ came to send upon the earth. The apostles did not invest contemporary heathenism with that halo of false beauty which has been more or less fashionable in Christendom ever since the renaissance. They saw in heathendom the kingdom of darkness. Its material civilization, its splendid literature, its vast organizations civil and military, its social and political traditions, were nothing to them or less than nothing. We know, said St. John–we know that we are of the truth, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. All that is of the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world, and the world passeth away and the lust thereof. The highest civilization, so termed, was in St. Pauls eyes just as much in need of the gospel as the rudest types of savage life. He had as much to do for the cultivated heathens who listened to him on the Areopagus of Athens as for the wild heathens of the Mediterranean islands, who after their rude fashion showed him no little kindness when he was saved from his shipwreck, for he saw everywhere error and sin-error which obscured the real nature of God and the true destiny and the highest interest of man–and sin which made man Gods enemy, the antagonist of Gods uncreated nature as the perfect being. The conviction that those who were not in Christ were lost–lost unless they could be brought to Him to be illuminated, to be gifted with a new nature, to be washed, to be sanctified, to be justified before the presence of the All-holy–this was the second element of conviction which urged the apostles onwards through the world to convert it–which urged them on even to martyrdom.

3. And the third conviction that goes to make up the missionary spirit is a belief in the capacity of every man for the highest good–for salvation through Christ. Intellectual dulness, want of imagination, want of what people have taken to calling lately sweetness and light, want of moral fervour and quickness–these are not barriers. Doubtless some minds, some natures–I would rather say some souls–present more points of contact with the gospel than do others. Some, I admit, present very few indeed; but no child of Adam is so constituted as to be incapable of receiving the truth which is necessary to his highest good; and the true missionary knows that if he can only get deep enough beneath the surface, beneath the crust of habit formed by sensuality, by indifference, by prejudice, he will at length find a home for truth–he will at length find that which will respond to it in the secret spring of the soul. Nelson used to tell young midshipmen who were entering the navy that they ought to look forward, every one of them, as a matter of course, to commanding the channel fleet, or at least to commanding a line-of-battle ship. And this faith in general capacity for success is still more necessary in the Christian missionary. He looks upon every child of man as bearing within him capacities for the highest greatness–capacities which have only to be roused and developed by the assured grace of God. Now, this faith in humanity–in what it may be made by grace–is assailed in our days on the ground that character and circumstances are, after all, too imperious to be set aside–that they, as a matter of fact, make us what we are–that it is folly to think of overruling them by any doctrine or secret influence that can be brought to bear. And this is not a new idea. The learned physician Galen, who wrote in the third century of the Christian era, and who as a heathen was strongly prejudiced against the Church of Christ, remarks with reference to the education of children, The cultivator can never succeed in making the thorn bear grapes, for the nature of the thorn is, from the first, incapable of such improvement. And then he goes on to say that if the vines which are capable of bearing such fruit be neglected they will either produce bad fruit or none at all. Here Galen marks out what, in his opinion, could really be done with human nature–certainly we must remark, within very narrow limits indeed–and what, in his opinion, it is folly to attempt. Tertullian, an eminent Christian writer of the period, in his treatise on the human soul, admits that the bad tree will bring forth no fruit if it be not grafted, and that the good tree will produce bad fruit unless it be cultivated. So much for nature, but then Tertullian proceeds, And the stones will become the children of Abraham if they be formed to the faith of Abraham, and the generation of vipers will bring forth fruits meet for repentance if they expel the poison of malignity. For such, he says, is the power of Divine grace which, indeed is more powerful than nature. The heathen Celsus probably expressed a general opinion among his friends when he said it was literally impossible to improve a man who had grown old in vice before his conversion. Cyprian, who was afterwards Bishop of Carthage and a martyr for Christ, had taken, he tells us, exactly the Fame view of the impossibility of changing natural habit. How he learnt the power of Gods grace he tells us in a most remarkable passage of one of his extant letters. Receive, he says to his correspondent, that which must be experienced before it can be understood. When I lay in the darkness, in the depths of the night, when I was tossed hither and thither by the billows of the world, and wandered about with an uncertain and fluctuating course, I deemed it a matter of extreme difficulty that any one could be born again–could lay aside what he was before, while his corporal nature remained what it was. How, said I, can there be so great a transformation as that a man should all at once lay aside what is innate from his very organization, or, through habit, has become a second nature? How should a man learn frugality who has been accustomed to luxuries? How should he who has been clad in gold and purple condescend to simple attire. The man who has been surrounded with public honours take to privacy, or another exchange admiring troops of dependents for voluntary solitude? The allurements of sense, I said to myself, are surely very tenacious. Intemperance, pride, anger, ambition, lust–these must, when once indulged, they must perforce, retain their hold. So I said to myself, for I was, in truth, entangled yet in the errors of my former life, and did not believe that I could be freed from them; and so I complied with the vices that still cleaved to me, and in despair of amendment submitted to my evil inclinations as if they were part of my nature. But when the stain of my former life had been washed out by the laver of regeneration, a pure and serene light was poured into my reconciled heart. When the second birth received from heaven through the Spirit had changed me into a new man, things formerly doubtful were confirmed in a wonderful manner. What had been closed before became open before my eyes; what had been dark was now illuminated; power was given to do what had seemed difficult; the impossible had become possible. I can see now that my former life, being of fleshly origin and spent in sin, was a life of earth. The life which the Holy One has kindled in me is a life from God. This testimony has been re-echoed since by thousands and thousands of Christians and, therefore, the barriers of habit enshrined within venerable traditions which the Christian missionary encounters to-day in China or in India, however serious they may be as practical obstacles, are not really insurmountable. By and by the gospel leaven will surely begin to ferment, and then these vast, ancient, complicated societies will heave and break till they open a way to the influences of the gospel, if not so swiftly, yet as surely, as do the uncultivated New Zealanders and Polynesians. To doubt this is to lose faith, if not in the gospel, at least in humanity–in the capacity of every being for coming to the highest truth, for coming to God in Christ. (Canon Liddon.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 49. I am come to send fire] See this subject largely explained on Mt 10:34, &c. From the connection in which these words stand, both in this place and in Matthew, it appears as if our Lord intended by the word fire, not only the consuming influence of the Roman sword, but also the influence of his own Spirit in the destruction of sin. In both these senses this fire was already kindled: as yet, however, it appeared but as a spark, but was soon to break out into an all-consuming flame.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Some of the ancients here by fire understood the Holy Ghost, or the preaching of the gospel, with those flames of love and holy affections which that causeth in the hearts of good people; but this interpretation cannot but be looked upon as strained to those who compare this verse with Luk 12:51-53, and the parallel text in Mat 10:34-36. By

fire here therefore is to be understood the dissension or division mentioned Luk 12:51, with all those persecutions, wars, &c. which are the effects of it. A prediction or threatening of persecutions or wars, or any kind of troubled state of things, is often expressed in holy writ under the notion of fire, and water, or a flood, for though fire and water are opposite in their qualities, yet they both agree in the common effect of consumption, wasting, and desolation. Christ saith he came to send it, because he foresaw this would be a certain consequent, though not a proper and natural effect, of the preaching of the gospel. Christ may be said to come to send a fire, in the same sense as he that is employed in the removal of a filthy dunghill may be said to come to send a stench; his design is to carry the muck away, and in due time he will have done it, but in the mean time it sends out a much greater stench than before it was stirred.

And what will I, if it be already kindled? Not to take notice of what critical authors say about the signification of the particles or the phrase here used, I take the true sense to be, I desire nothing more than that it were already kindled; nor was this any more inconsistent with the goodness and holiness of Christ, than for a goldsmith to wish the fire was kindled that should separate the dross from the pure metal, or than for Christ to desire that his floor were thoroughly purged. Christ doth not desire the fire for the fires sake, but for the make of that effect it would have, in separating in his church the good from the bad; it was a thing he saw would be through the opposition the world would give to the preaching of the gospel, before his gospel would obtain in the world; I would, saith he, that what they do they would do quickly, that they would spit their venom, that my Father might make their wrath to praise him. Whereas some interpret it indicatively, as if the fire were already begun, can hardly be no interpreted.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

49-53. to sendcast.

fire“the higherspiritual element of life which Jesus came to introduce into thisearth (compare Mt 3:11), withreference to its mighty effects in quickening all that is akin to itand destroying all that is opposed. To cause this element oflife to take up its abode on earth, and wholly to pervade humanhearts with its warmth, was the lofty destiny of the Redeemer”[OLSHAUSEN: so CALVIN,STIER, ALFORD,c.].

what will I, &c.anobscure expression, uttered under deep and half-smothered emotion. Inits general import all are agreed but the nearest to the precisemeaning seems to be, “And what should I have to desire if itwere once already kindled?” [BENGELand BLOOMFIELD].

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

I am come to send fire on the earth,…. Meaning either the Gospel, which is as fire, that gives both light and heat, warms the hearts of God’s people, and causes them to burn within them; though very distressing and torturing to wicked men; so the word of God is compared to fire, in Jer 20:9. Or else zeal for it, and which would be opposed with sharp contentions by others; or rather persecution for the sake of the Gospel, called sometimes the fiery trial; which tries men, as gold is tried in the fire, what they are, and what their principles and profession be; unless the Holy Ghost, and baptizing with him, and with fire, should be meant; since Christ in the next verse, speaks of the baptism of his sufferings, which that was to follow:

and what will I? what shall I say concerning this fire? what shall I wish and pray for? what would be pleasing and agreeable to me? even this,

if it be already kindled; or “that it were already kindled”, or “O that it were already kindled”; meaning either that the Gospel was warmly preached by his disciples, and zealously defended by them, as it was after his death and resurrection; or that hot persecution was raised against it which was now beginning, since the advantage of it would be far greater than the evil in it: or that the Holy Ghost was come down in cloven tongues, like as of fire.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

I came to cast fire ( ). Suddenly Jesus lets the volcano in his own heart burst forth. The fire was already burning. “Christ came to set the world on fire, and the conflagration had already begun” (Plummer). The very passion in Christ’s heart would set his friends on fire and his foes in opposition as we have just seen (Lu 11:53f.). It is like the saying of Jesus that he came to bring not peace, but a sword, to bring cleavage among men (Mt 10:34-36).

And what will I, if it is already kindled? ( ;). It is not clear what this passage means. Probably is be taken in the sense of “how” (). How I wish. Then can be taken as equal to . How I wish that it were already kindled. is first aorist passive of , to set fire to, to kindle, to make blaze. Probably Luke means the conflagration to come by his death on the Cross for he changes the figure and refers to that more plainly.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Fire. A spiritual impulse which shall result in the divisions described in the following verses.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) I am come to send fire on the earth;” (pur elthon balein epi ten gen) “I came to cast fire upon the earth,” violence, Luk 12:51, as well as judgment for sin, Mat 3:11.

2) “And what will I, if it be already kindled?” (kai ti thelo ei ede anephthe) “And what will I (what a priority will I have) if it was and now exists, already kindled;” The fire of his discriminating words and judgment warmed the hearts of believers and burned, with deep convictions, those who rejected His words, when he warned of their coming doom in hell fire, Mat 3:11; Mat 25:41.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

49. I am come to send fire on the earth. From these concluding words it may easily be inferred, that this was one of Christ’s latest discourses, and is not related by Luke at the proper place. But the meaning is, that Christ has introduced into the world the utmost confusion, as if he had intended to mingle heaven and earth. The gospel is metaphorically compared to fire, because it violently changes the face of things. The disciples having falsely imagined that, while they were at ease and asleep, the kingdom of God would come, Christ declares, on the contrary, that there must first be a dreadful conflagration to kindle the world. And as some beginnings of it were even then making their appearance, Christ encourages the disciples by this very consideration, that they already feel the power of the gospel. “When great commotions,” says he, “shall already begin to kindle, this is so far from being a reason why you should tremble, that it is rather a ground of strong confidence; and, for my own part, I rejoice that this fruit of my labors is visible.” In like manner, all the ministers of the gospel ought to apply this to themselves, that, when there are troubles in the world, they may be more diligently employed in their duty. It is proper to observe, also, that the same fire of doctrine, when it burns on all sides, consumes chaff and straw, but purifies silver and gold.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL NOTES

Luk. 12:49. I am come.Rather, I came (R.V.). The tense refers to the historical fact of the Incarnation. Note in this the consciousness of pre-existence, as also of a heavenly origin in the last clause of the verse. Fire.As a symbol of discord and violence. What will I, etc.It is difficult to make out the precise meaning of the words. Probably the best rendering of them isAnd what will I? (what do I desire now?) O that it were already kindled!

Luk. 12:50. A baptism.Cf. Mat. 20:22. To be plunged or immersed in sufferings. Straitened.Pressed, distracted. Cf. Joh. 12:27. A premonition of Gethsemane and Calvary.

Luk. 12:51. Division.Mat. 10:34 has a sword.

Luk. 12:52. For from henceforth.A better reading is, For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided, etc. Three against two, etc.I.e., the younger generation against the older.

Luk. 12:53. The father, etc.The five members of the household are here specified: father, mother, son, daughter, and daughter-in-law.

Luk. 12:54. To the people.Rather, to the multitudes; from which we would understand that the preceding words had been specially addressed to the disciples. He warns them also that the time is critical, upbraids them with spiritual blindness, for not being able to see it (Luk. 12:54-57), and urges them to make, each one, at once, his peace with God (Luk. 12:58-59). A cloud. Perhaps, rather, the cloud, the well-known prognostic of rain (1Ki. 18:44). In Palestine the rains come up from the Mediterranean. Straightway.Rapid and certain conclusion as to the weather.

Luk. 12:55. South wind.Coming across the desert. Heat.Rather a scorching heat (R.V.).

Luk. 12:56. Hypocrites.The insincerity lay in the fact that they chose not to see signs which were equally visible with those of the weather. Among these signs were miracles (Isa. 35:4-6); the political condition (Gen. 49:10); the preaching of the Baptist (Matthew 3) (Farrar).

Luk. 12:57. Yea and why.Even apart from signs, from the declaration of prophets, ye might, from what ye hear and see, recognise the signs of the times, and the person of the Messiah in Me (Bloomfield).

Luk. 12:58. When thou goest, etc.The figure is that of coming to an agreement with a creditor on the way to the court. Officer.The gaoler, lit. the exactor, whose duty it was to compel payment of the debt.

Luk. 12:59. Mite.The smallest Greek coin then in use.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Luk. 12:49-59.

The Signs of the Times.The fact that in the mission and work of Christ upon earth a new epoch in the worlds history had opened was clearly realised by the Saviour Himself; it was, however, but imperfectly comprehended by His disciples, and quite hidden from the people at large. In this section of the gospel history Jesus gives expression to His own feelings of concern at the greatness of the work given Him to do, and the sufferings through which alone He could bring it to a successful issue. He then forewarns the disciples of the sharp conflict between faith and unbelief which would result in every community where the gospel was preached; and, finally, He upbraids the multitude with the spiritual blindness which prevented their recognising the significance and solemnity of the times in which they were living.

I. The actual state of matters so far as it concerned Himself (Luk. 12:49-50).The conflict with the Pharisees was an indication of a widespread war between the forces of good and evil, which was to result from His work on earth. The fire-brand had been cast upon the earth, and from it a great conflagration would ensue. He had kindled in the hearts of the disciples a love of heavenly things, which they were to spread abroad; and all the efforts of the earthly-minded would be directed to oppose and extinguish it. And He recognises that one of the results of this conflict will be sufferings and death for Himself; nay, He realises the fact that His passion is needed for completing the work which He came to earth to accomplish. Without the cross His teachings and His miracles would fail to produce the great change on human society which it was His purpose to effect. This utterance of His strikingly illustrates the union in Him of the human and the Divine natures. With genuinely human feelings He shrinks from the conflict, but with Divine knowledge and love He anticipates the results that will flow from His self-sacrifice, and longs for it to be accomplished. These mingled feelings recur in a more intense form at a later period of His life (Joh. 12:27; Mat. 26:38), but were never entirely absent from His mind during the whole period of His public ministry. The fact that He so clearly foresaw the sufferings and death which were attached to His redeeming work brings into clearest relief His love for mankind and His devotion to the will of the Father.

II. The disciples forewarned of their participation in the strife (Luk. 12:51-53).They were probably anticipating the erection of a Messianic kingdom, characterised by peace and prosperity of a material kind, and needed to be prepared for a very different state of matters. Peace was not to be the first and immediate result of His work, if by peace was to be understood comfortable outward conditions of life. The peace which He bequeathed to His disciples was a state of heart: being delivered from bondage and fear, and reconciled to God. The relation which Jesus sought to establish between Himself and all who accepted Him as their Lord and Saviour was higher and more sacred than any other, and acknowledgment of His unique claims was certain to lead to conflict, not only between Himself and the world, but between the members of human society. Men would begin to distinguish themselves as adversaries and subjects of His kingdom. And it is one proof of the profound significance of Christs work in the world that this strife should spring up wherever the gospel is preached. Men feel that they have to do with One whose claims override all others and extend to every department of life; and if these claims are not accepted they provoke resistance. And every one who accepts Christ as Lord and Master needs to keep in mind that He insists upon absolute devotion to Himself, even if this means the rupture of the nearest and dearest ties that bind him to his fellows.

III. The multitude upbraided for their blindness and heedlessness (Luk. 12:54-59).Jesus now turns to the people at large, who do not realise the gravity of the circumstances in which they are placed, and who are plunged in carnal security and impenitence. He upbraids them with their blindness to the importance of the crisis, and urges them to take advantage of the time which yet remains to them for making their peace with God. He contrasts the shrewdness and prudence which they display in the ordinary affairs of life with their slowness to comprehend the things that concern their spiritual welfare. The real explanation of the discrepancy is that they are interested in things that concern their earthly welfare, but are indifferent to their highest welfare. A sinful heart means a darkened understanding (cf. Rom. 1:21; Eph. 4:18). The very appearance of Christ upon the earth pointed to the necessity of reconciliation with God: it was to effect this that He came, and therefore indifference to Him and to His teaching meant exposing oneself to the greatest danger. All who heard Him had the opportunity of becoming reconciled to Him whom they had offended, and whose claims they could not of themselves satisfy. Let them beware of allowing the day of grace to pass, and of compelling God to deal with them according to the strict demands of justice.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk. 12:49-59

Luk. 12:49-53. The Conflict.My conflict hastens apace; Mine over, yours begins; and then let the servants tread in their Masters steps, uttering their testimony entire and fearless, neither loving nor dreading the world, anticipating awful wrenches of the dearest ties in life, but looking forward, as I do, to the completion of their testimony, when, after the tempest, reaching the haven, they shall enter into the joy of their Lord.Brown.

The Critical Nature of the Time.The critical nature of the time

(1) as concerned Jesus HimselfLuk. 12:49-50,

(2) as concerned the disciples (Luk. 12:50-53). Is it a time, said Elisha to the faithless Gehazi, to buy lands and oxen, when the hand of God is on Israel?that is to say, when the Assyrian is at the gates of Samaria? Jesus speaks in the same way to the disciples about Him, Is it a time for the believer to propose, as the aim of his life, the peaceful enjoyment of worldly property, at the moment when the great conflict is about to begin?Godet.

Luk. 12:49. Fire on the Earth.By fire here we are to understand the higher spiritual element of life which Jesus came to introduce into this earth, with reference to its mighty effects in quickening all that is akin to it, and destroying all that is opposed. To cause this element of life to take up its abode on earth, and wholly to pervade human hearts with its warmth, was the lofty destiny of the Redeemer.Brown.

The Gospel a Fire.Our Lord says here, in the plainest way, that while the object of His coming is to give peace, the effect of His coming will too often be to send fire on earth.

I. The text calls the gospel a fire.A fire is a power. How fire spreads, glows, rages, devours! When the gospel is called a fire, we mean not a name, an idea, a poor faint, creeping thing, which may be disregarded and let alone, but a great, active, at last a victorious and irresistible force. Never suppose that the gospel is an insignificant or despicable thing.

II. There are hearts and places in which the gospel is not a fire.There are families where the gospel in the heart of one causes discord and division. The only alternative must be the backsliding of the one, or the conversion of the rest. So long as the gospel is not a power, it is not a fire; it causes no breach and no division. Therefore we are constrained to wish for such signs of its working. The fire is the sign of the peace. If there be no fire, the gospel will be a mere balm, a mere soporific, a mere lullaby of the soul.

III. What is the lesson of the text for each of us?Is the concord of our homes due to the gospel? Is serving Christ the secret of family union? Let the fire be a fire of cleansing, and a fire of quickening, and a fire of devotion. Is your home disorganised? What has divided you? Was it the fire of the gospel which severed? Are you intolerant of the devotion and service which others render to Christ? It must needs be that the gospel divides; but woe to them by whom that division comes! We do not wish to spread division by the gospel; but even if this be the effect, we recognise there one of the signs of the work of grace. Division is a sign that life is there. It means an end to fatal lethargy. It is the work of the ministry to bring the gospel home. It is something to have it preached in our churches; it is more to have it preached, even to dispeace and division, in our homes.Vaughan.

Already Kindled.The disciples having falsely imagined that, while they were at ease and asleep, the kingdom of God would come, Christ declares, on the contrary, that there must first be a dreadful conflagration, to kindle the world. And as some beginnings of it were, even then, making their appearance, Christ encourages the disciples by the very consideration that they already feel the power of the gospel. When great commotions, says He, shall already begin to kindle, this is so far from being a reason why ye should tremble, that it is rather a ground of strong confidence; and, for my own part, I rejoice that this fruit of my labours is visible.Calvin.

To send fire.Everything fertile in results is rich in wars (Renan). The fire when it burns on all sides consumes chaff and straw, but purifies silver and gold.

Luk. 12:50. The Passover before the Passion.Jesus expresses with perfect candour the emotion that fills His mind. The thought of the terrible suffering He is to endure is before His mind, and weighs upon Him like a nightmare until it is over. The first evidence of this feeling is in this passage; a second time it comes to view while He is in the temple (Joh. 12:27)Now is My soul troubled; and what shall I say? A third time it breaks forth in all its vehemence in the garden of Gethsemane.

The Secret of the Saviours Earnestness.

1. His belief in a Divine commission.
2. His belief in the solemnity of time. We, too, however, have a mission to fulfil, and our time for fulfilling it is appointed and proportioned by God. If these convictions possessed our souls, would they not kindle a Christlike earnestness?
(1) They would dispel the delusions of time.
(2) They would overcome the hindrances to submission.
(3) They would break down the impediments of fear.Hull.

Luk. 12:51-53. The Gospel an Occasion of Division.

I. The fact that the gospel of Christ shall be the occasion of division and contention in the world is easily verified. The heart of every believer is an example. The history of the gospel in every country into which it has been introduced establishes it.
II. The causes of the division. Hatred of the truth; hatred of a holiness which rebukes sin; hatred of authority such as the gospel claims.
III. Results of this division. The world is convinced of sin. The faith and patience of believers are called forth and strengthened.

Luk. 12:51. Peace.This saying may distress weak minds; for

(1) the prophets everywhere promise peace and tranquillity under the reign of Christ, and

(2) Christ is our peace (Eph. 2:14), and the very office of the gospel is to reconcile us to God. But we must remember that this peace is associated with faith, and exists only in the hearts and consciences of the godly. The corrupt nature converts the inestimable gift into a most destructive evil.

The Result of Christs Coming.Our Lord speaks not of the intention with which He came into the world, but of the sad result of His coming, which was to be (owing to the corruption of mans fallen nature) strife and division.

Luk. 12:52. Strife Sometimes Better than Peace.Better is strife, when it brings one near to God, than peace, when it separates one from God.Gregory Naz.

Luk. 12:54-59.Two Great Faults:

I. Blindness, in not being able to discern the significance of this time, as they did the signs of the natural heavens (Luk. 12:54-56).

II. Want of prudence in not repenting and becoming reconciled to the law of God while yet there was time (Luk. 12:57-59).

Luk. 12:57-59. The True State of the Case.Why do ye not discern of yourselves your true statethat which is justthe justice of your case as before God? You are going (the course of your life is your journey) with your adversary (the just and holy law of God) before the magistrate (God Himself); therefore by the way take pains to be delivered from him (by repentance and faith in the Son of God), lest he drag thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the exactor, and the exactor cast thee into prison.Alford.

Luk. 12:58-59. When thou goest, etc.Our Saviour seems to say: In a merely temporal matter, you are careful to act thus prudently. While the day of mercy yet lasts, should you not discover the like anxiety to avail yourselves of it? through Me to obtain deliverance from the wrath of God, before it be too late?Burgon.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Appleburys Comments

The Mission of the Son of Man
Scripture

Luk. 12:49-53 I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what do I desire, if it is already kindled? 50 But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! 51 Think ye that I am come to give peace in the earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: 52 for there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. 53 They shall be divided, father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against her mother; mother in law against her daughter in law, and daughter in law against her mother in law.

Comments

I came to cast fire.The lesson about the purpose of His mission came directly out of what He had just said about faithfulness. It was no easy task to which His servants had been called. Some, no doubt, thought that the reign of the Messiah would be one of peace and easy living. Some were looking for a temporal kingdom that would provide an abundance of foodthey had a sample when He fed them on the loaves and fish. But actually for many His kingdom was to be marked by persecution, bitterness, hardship, want and death. See Pauls description of what it meant for him to serve Christ (2Co. 4:7-11; 2Co. 11:23-28).

Fire is used as a symbol of purification in some instances, but in this context Jesus meant the destructive power of fire. There was to be strife in families because of Him; some would be for Him and others would oppose Him bitterly.

if it is already kindled?Jesus came to cast fire upon the earth. That fire was already kindled, for people were taking sides for or against Him, Some of the Pharisees were plotting to kill Him. But He continued to challenge His disciples to a life of complete dedication to Him. Many were responding by taking up their cross daily and following Him.

But I have a baptism.Jesus mission was to start men thinking about Him. The sacrifice on the cross was one thing He still had to accomplish. There were many things pressing upon Him which He had to care for before He could do this last thing the Father had given to accomplish (Joh. 10:18; Joh. 17:4; Joh. 19:30). For one thing, He had to prepare His disciples for their mission of taking the Word of the Cross into all the world.

Jesus reminded the disciples that they must share His experience (Mar. 10:38). There was a cross in the mission of the Master, and there was a cross in the mission of His servants.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

Butlers Comments

SECTION 4

Attitudes That Aid Alertness (Luk. 12:49-59)

49 I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!50 I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained until it is accomplished! 51Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; 52for henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three; 53they will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against her mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

54 He also said to the multitudes, When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, A shower is coming; and so it happens. 55And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, There will be scorching heat; and it happens. 56You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky; but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

57 And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? 58As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison. 59I tell you, you will never get out till you have paid the very last copper.

Luk. 12:39-53 Determination: The incarnate work of redemption which Jesus Christ would accomplish on the cross and in the resurrection would be the ultimate touchstone between truth and falsehoodbetween good and evil. His death and resurrection would be the final judgment upon unbelief. He would bring the final separation between sheep and goats, saved and lost, wise and unwise. The fire Jesus says He came to bring probably refers to the prophecy in Mal. 3:1-4. There it is predicted that the Messiah will come to the world to sit as a refiners fire and fullers soap to purify the sons of Levi. This prophecy predicts the Messiahs first coming because it is in the same context which predicts the coming of Messiahs forerunner (Luk. 3:1). Fire, in this instance, symbolizes purging or purifying. Messiahs death purifies and purges all who will believe from all who will not believe. Messiahs death is the great crucible of humanity. God judges all humanity according to its response to His Son. Those who obey the Son are Gods precious possession; all who disobey the Son are dross and refuse to be destroyed.

This holocaust of suffering the second death which the Perfect Son chose to endure constantly immersed Him in pressure. He was determined that it would be accomplished (cf. Heb. 5:8-9; Heb. 10:1-5; Heb. 12:1-2), but the longer it took to be completed, the more intense became the temptation to refuse it. The prospect of His suffering for the sin of the world was a perpetual Gethsemane for Jesus, (Joh. 12:27-28; Luk. 22:39-46). He would gladly have done with it immediatelybut Gods will decreed, Not yet. The Greek word baptisma is used by Jesus to characterize His atonement. Jesus would be immersed in death: He would take all the second death, be immersed in punishment for sin; that is what the word baptisma meansimmersion. Anything short of that meaning would be ridiculous respecting Christs death. That is how the word should be exclusively interpreted when it refers to Christian baptism (immersion; not sprinkling or pouring).

The Greek word sunechomai, literally means, come together with, and is translated constrained. It means press together or pressure. Jesus experienced pressure as no other human being ever experienced it. There was no reason for Him to die; He could claim eternal life by right of His perfect obedience to Gods will. No one could take His life from HimHe had power to lay it down and take it up if He wished. It was not fair, not just, not right that He should die for someone elses sins. But it was perfect, infinite, unadulterated love that determined He would! What pressure!

This infinite love and grace becomes the infallible rule by which all mankind will be judged. Jesus death divides the world into believers and unbelievers. Upon no other point (besides the resurrection, of course) are we to decide who are believers and unbelievers. Those who do not decide to believe and accept His blood for their sins will oppose and persecute those who do. Jesus death does not bring peace (as men think of peaceabsence of trial and testing)it brings division and a sword (cf. Mat. 10:34). The servant who wishes to be found watching may have to choose against his own family if it is so required to remain faithful to Christ. The water of Christian baptism is thicker than human blood-ties. Not even genetic relationship must stand in the way of loyalty to Christ. The highest human relationships must become secondary to the highest of all relationshipssonship to God, through discipleship with Jesus. Immersion of oneself in such complete self-sacrifice will require the determination of faith Jesus Himself exercised in the baptism with which He was baptized. Self must die; Jesus must be formed in us (Gal. 2:20-21; Gal. 3:26-27; Gal. 4:19).

Luk. 12:54-59 Discernment: Jesus chides the multitudes with the admonition to use the same intensity discerning the spiritual time as they do in discerning the weather. Heat and drought, wind and rain, affected the prospects of wheat-harvest, the vine-yield, and the fruitfulness of orchards and olive trees. The Jews probably made amateur forecasts of the weather every day just as the modern farmer does. The weather of Palestine is less variable than in most European and American countries. Jewish farmers and others made it their daily routine to check and try to read the signs indicating what the weather would be. If a cloud rose in the west, it would be bringing rain in off the Mediterranean Sea; if a wind blew from the south and east, it would be bringing scorching, drying wind in off the desert. They paid attention to these signs. But, just like men today, they seemed to be oblivious to spiritual signals all around them.

Why is it that men exert great effort, display expertise and logic in forecasting the weather (practicing law, medicine, constructing machines and buildings) but cannot arrive at the historical, logical deduction that Jesus is who He claims to bethe divine Son of God, God in the flesh? It is a moral problem! The facts that pertain to the weather, etc., are facts that do not demand a moral commitment; the second are facts which do! The facts of agriculture and buildings have to do with selfish accumulation of worldly riches; the second facts demand renunciation of worldly riches. Jesus made this same criticism earlier in His ministry (cf. Mat. 16:3).

What signs should they have been able to discern of the spiritual crisis surrounding them? Undoubtedly Jesus was referring to the very plain fulfillments of Old Testament prophecies then occurring in His incarnation. Mic. 5:2 predicted His birth and messiahship; Isa. 52:1-15; Isa. 53:1-12 predicted what countenance the Messiah would present to the world; Isa. 61:1-3 predicted the Messiahs ministry (cf. Luk. 4:16-32); Malachi predicted the Messiah and His forerunner (Mal. 3:1-4; Mal. 4:5-6; Isa. 40:3-5); Dan. 9:24-27 predicted the precise time in history when the Messiah should be expected to appear and certain political signs that should be looked for. Then, there was the recent ministry of John the Baptist as a sign of the Messiahs time. Finally, there were all the miracles and teachings Jesus Himself had been doing (even raising the dead). How, in the name of all that is logical, empirical, honest and practical could men not interpret (discern) the present time?

The same admonition applies to the world of unbelievers today. Wake up, be alert and watchful, and apply your minds and hearts to discern the signs of history. Declare that God came in the flesh in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ. Gods Son accomplished redemption and offers it to all men by faith and obedience to His New Covenant terms. They are there in His divinely inspired New Covenant scriptures for all to read and understand. Judge for yourself what is right, true and finalwhile there is still time:

a.

Every man must judge what is right and true for himselfwe cannot decide for one another.

b.

There is only a certain amount of time to make our choice about truthToday is the only day we really have to choose.

c.

We must settle with the Judge about our sins before we are taken into the court of no appeal. We settle about our sins by accepting the blood of the Judges Son as atonement. We do this by faith and obedience to His commandments.

d.

It will be too late when we stand before the Judge. Then the only thing left is eternal imprisonment, because imperfect men can never pay the perfect price required for fellowship with a perfect God.

e.

The next discourses of Jesus (Luke, chapter 13) will tell men how to settle with the Judge about their sins.

STUDY STIMULATORS:

1.

What is the leaven of the Pharisees? Since there are no longer any Pharisees, do Christians today need to beware of this? Why?

2.

Do you think God is aware and involved in the minute details of your life? How does that make you feel toward God?

3.

Have you ever been tempted to doubt or deny that Jesus was God in the flesh? What do you think made you be temptedpersecution? human opinions?

4.

What is the unpardonable sin? Do you think it is possible to commit that sin today? How?

5.

What is covetousness? Why does the Lord say it is idolatry? Why is a man a fool to covet? How may covetousness be overcome in your life?

6.

Are you ever anxious? Is it a sin to be anxious? Can you help it? How?

7.

Name five characteristics of a watchful servant of the Lord.

8.

Characterize the wicked servanthave you ever been one? When?

9.

Do you think the Lord will reward or punish all people the same? Why?

10.

What are the two attitudes that aid spiritual alertness? Are you cultivating these two attitudes in your daily walk with Christ?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(49) I am come to send fire on the earth.There is a strange unique abruptness in the utterance. We are compelled to assume a pause, a moments thought, as in one whose gaze looks out into the future, and who at once feels its terrors and yet accepts them. The fire which He came to send is the fire of judgment which shall burn up the chaff (see Note on Mat. 3:12), the baptism of fire which shall purify and cleanse as well as destroy. The Son of Man knew that this, with all its terrors, was what He came to work. If the fire was already kindled, if judgment was already passed upon the unfaithful stewards and the servants who knew their Lords will and did it not, why should He wish to check it? What other wish or will was right for Him than that it should complete what it had begun, even though it brought not peace, but a swordnot union, but division?

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

49. I am come At this my first advent.

To send fire As (Mat 10:34) he had come to send a sword. See our note on that and its following passage.

What will I What can I will or purpose but to accept it ?

If it be already kindled If the fierce wrath of my enemies, which must result in my death, be already burning. If it be so, I must endure the dread agony.

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

“I have come to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish it was already kindled.”

Apart from the problem of translating the last part of the verse, which probably does not affect the meaning of the whole, the main question here is as to the significance of the ‘casting of fire on the earth’. The general impression gained by such a phrase would be that of causing disturbance and ferment and trouble, and finally of bringing judgment on those spoken of. For that is the usual idea behind the thought of the ‘casting of fire’ (compare Luk 9:54).

The alternative has been mooted that it indicates the fire of the Holy Spirit and therefore refers to the Gospel going out like fire around the world accomplishing His purpose, something which was the desire of His heart. This last idea is attractive, and had this verse stood by itself, and had there been no other Scriptures dealing with the topic, this might have been feasible. But a major problem of this interpretation is that it is against the tenor of the passage as a whole, which is one of sadness and heartache, and it is also against the tenor of other Scriptures. Besides when fire is connected with the Holy Spirit it is never thought of as ‘cast, thrown’.

The truth is that what Jesus appears to have in view here is not pleasant. It is in contrast with Luk 5:32 which declares the other purpose of His coming. There He says, ‘I have come — to call sinners to repentance’, which is the other side of the story. Here He has come to ‘cast fire’.

On the other hand we may certainly see the idea as partly included, although more probably in terms of His word being the fire, a fire which does have its effect on the hearts of believers, but also has its effect in judgments coming on the world. For the work of the Holy Spirit is undoubtedly a part of the fire that He would bring on the world, as He fulfils Himself as ‘the Spirit of burning’ and ‘of judgment’ in establishing purity in the world (Isa 4:4).

But to understand precisely what is in mind we must turn to the Scriptures. For there are a number of references in Scripture that we need to take into account in order to illuminate the picture:

In Luk 3:16 reference is made to the Coming One as ‘baptising/drenching/overwhelming in Holy Spirit and fire’, and this is immediately interpreted in terms of producing fruitfulness (by means of heavenly rain) for some and the burning up of others like the chaff (Luk 3:17). If we accept John’s own explanation therefore the Holy Spirit produces the ripe grain of believers while the fire is very much a consuming fire, the fire of judgment, for the burning up of the chaff. At first sight it is tempting to compare the words there with this passage here where again the fire and baptism are in close parallel. But here the baptism is rather one of suffering that comes on Him and overwhelms Him, whereas there He is the One Who will do the overwhelming. And furthermore there the baptism represented drenching rain producing fruit, whereas here the baptism is of suffering, and thus very different circumstances are in mind. Nor is there the thought in John’s words of the ‘casting of fire’. Rather it is men who themselves will be cast into the fire (Luk 3:9), and the fire is rather present to consume. They will be overwhelmed by fire. Nevertheless even so the basic idea behind the word ‘fire’ there is that of judgment, which certainly also applies here.

We may certainly include in the fire there the fire of purifying and purging, for in the Old Testament God’s judgment on the many regularly purges the few. But purging never takes place without judgment, those purged come out of judgment (e.g. Zec 13:8-9; Mal 3:2-3; Mal 4:1-3). It is a great and terrible day (Mal 4:5), and it has begun in John the Baptiser (Mat 11:14).

In Isa 4:5 there is reference to the ‘spirit of burning’, which is also ‘the spirit of judgment’, and this refers to judgments which are coming on Jerusalem in order to purify Jerusalem and remove its filth in the last days. And this last will be by the burning up of the evil, the emphasis being on Jerusalem’s final purifying by the purging of what is evil through the fires of judgment. So the ‘burning’ is severe judgment that is seen as the means by which evil is removed. The consequence will be that the righteous are brought through the fire and the remainder are destroyed by it. This is probably a little closer to what is in mind in Jesus’ words, but again there is there no thought of ‘casting fire’.

In Eze 10:2 the man clothed in linen, who is an angel, is to take coals of fire from between the cherubim who bore the throne of God, a throne on which God was revealed in fire, and scatter (or sprinkle) them over the city. The significance of this would seem to be the same as in Isaiah 4, that as a result of the activity of God through His agents the people of Jerusalem would suffer destruction, while a remnant would escape, those who had been sealed by God. But this time the idea of the ‘scattering’ or ‘sprinkling’ of coals of fire on the people is clearly introduced. The scattering of fire is an act of judgment on the city. There would then be a remnant remaining whom God would preserve because His mark was upon them (Luk 9:4). The final aim was the preserving of the remnant, while judgment came on the unrighteous who had spurned God’s words through Ezekiel and Jeremiah, and all this would be by the ‘strewing’ of fire.

4) The same idea as in 3). occurs in Rev 8:5 (compareLuk 12:7-8; Luk 12:10) where the ‘casting of fire’ on the earth from the heavenly altar indicates God’s intention to work in judgment. The consequence of that fire would be a series of judgments, many of which involved fire, which could not touch those who were sealed by God (Luk 9:4), but which, while theoretically intended to bring the world to repentance (Luk 9:21), would on the whole not succeed in its purpose because of the sinfulness of man, although we are no doubt to see that some will repent. It is mankind as a whole that does not repent. In the final analysis the casting of fire on it resulted in judgment on the world, with some being saved through it.

5) In Act 2:1-4 God comes in flames of fire on the Apostles and those who are with them, but this cannot really be seen as ‘cast on them’, even though in Act 2:17 the Spirit is to be ‘poured forth’. And in Act 2:18 fire is again a symbol of judgment as connected with the Holy Spirit. Thus even the flames on the Apostles signify judgment as well as mercy. His fire will come on the world through them.

6) Other examples of fire being brought down on people (and therefore ‘cast down’ on them by God), can be found in 2Ki 1:10; 2Ki 1:12; 2Ki 1:14 which are in mind in Luk 9:54. Compare also Luk 17:29.

7) As background to all this we should see the words of Isa 26:9, ‘when God’s judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness’. In other words as a result of His judgments while the majority perish, the minority are made to consider their ways.

Strictly speaking then the ‘casting of fire’ would seem to indicate 3). and 4). supplemented by 2 and 6), but seen in the light of 7). The word used in Ezekiel for ‘scattering’ (there it was coals of fire) is not the same as that used in Luk 12:49 for ‘casting’, but the idea is similar, and the passage in Revelation, which would appear partly to be based on Ezekiel, does use the same verb as in Luk 12:49 (ballo). Compare also Habbakuk Luk 3:13 LXX which speaks of ‘casting death on the heads of the wicked’. In each case the idea is the same, fire (or death) directed from above onto the earth. It would seem that ‘casting’, where used of things like fire and death, regularly indicates judgment. It is true that we might bring in here Mat 10:13 which speaks of ‘casting peace’, but that is the act of one person towards another rather than the act of God or of Jesus, while the casting of fire here is specifically seen as bringing anything but peace (Luk 12:51). But it does serve to confirm that just as peace can be passed on by being ‘cast on’ men through someone’s words, so can judgment.

The general idea then of the casting forth of fire would appear to be something which results in God’s activity among the people, on the whole bringing judgment on them, yet recognising that some will come through purified and finally unscathed as a result of it, because the mark of God is on them, with the result that it produces from among the whole a small group of the righteous (a little flock – Luk 12:32) who come out of the midst of the suffering. Compare for this Isa 6:13. This would fit well here with the verses that immediately follow where there is to be a division, even between peoples of the same family, between those who come to follow Jesus, and those who settle for judgment because they reject His words, between the righteous and the unrighteous.

But, as we have previously mentioned, there is one further thing to bear in mind before seeking to interpret Luk 12:49 and that is its context. For it immediately follows verses which have been describing God’s punishment on those, both high and low, who had failed Him in the administration of His world, those of whom He might have expected better. In Luk 12:46 the faithless steward had been ‘cut asunder’. In Luk 12:47 the prominent slave who had failed had been savagely beaten. In Luk 12:48 a the lesser slave, who had also failed, had received a lesser beating. And Jesus had then declared in Luk 12:48 b, ‘to whoever much is given, of them much will be required’. Thus Luk 12:49 (if we see it as introduced at all) is introduced as in a context of punishment being afflicted on those who have been favoured and have failed to respond with faithfulness.

So both context and background Scriptures demand that we see this casting of fire on earth as a judgment on those in mind, even though it is a judgment which will result in a remnant coming through to blessing. And the positioning of the verse prior to the thought in Luk 12:50 suggests that that judgment will begin prior to His final suffering, although we might possibly see it as being ‘kindled’ by it.

This could further indicate that we must see His ‘words’ as His means of casting the fire. For elsewhere His word is ‘cast’ into the ground like a seed (Luk 13:19). Jeremiah describes God’s words in these terms when he says, “For this reason thus says the Lord God of hosts, Because you speak this word, behold, I will make my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it will devour them’ (Jer 5:14), and again ‘Is not my word like a fire? says the Lord, and like a hammer which breaks the rock in pieces?’ (Jer 23:29). There is thus a precedent for words, especially words of judgment, being likened to fire. Compare also how it is emphasised that God’s words to Moses came out of the midst of the fire (Deu 4:12; Deu 4:36; Deu 5:22; Deu 9:10). And how fire would come out of the mouths of the Two Witnesses in the last days (Rev 11:5). Yet this explanation will not do just by itself, for fire being cast has a specific meaning elsewhere as we have seen, while the word is only seen as ‘cast’ when seed is in mind, not fire.

That His words can be seen as a judgmental fire has already come out in His claim that what He has taught will condemn that generation in the last Day (Luk 11:29-32). But they are not the only words that will condemn them, for there are also His own later words of judgment (Luk 13:5; Luk 13:34-35; Luk 17:22; Luk 19:27; Luk 19:42-44; Luk 21:6; Luk 21:10-26) which come over as a sentence on them. It may be that He saw the effect of all these as being ‘kindled’ when they finally crucified Him, and put the seal on their own judgment.

By these words He is declaring God’s judgment on the Jewish people, a judgment which He knows is coming because of their rejection of Him and His message, something which has by now become obvious (Luk 10:13-16; Luk 11:29-32). Much had been given to them. Now much will be required of them. But it must not be limited to Israel. The firs is cast ‘on the earth’. But He finds no pleasure in the fact and wishes that it was all over. Certainly the imminence of such judgment is assumed in Luk 11:51, illustrated immediately in Luk 13:1-5, and repeated in Luk 13:34-35, and in Luk 21:10-11; Luk 21:25-26.

Thus we must see Jesus here as suggesting that through His words and signs He is ‘casting fire’ on the people in a way which will bring judgment on the many (Luk 11:29-32; Luk 10:10-16), a judgment that will result in fire (Luk 3:9; Luk 3:17). His words will judge them in the last Day (Joh 12:47-48). This brings out that it is always a dangerous thing to be opened up to the truth, for if it is rejected it becomes the instrument of condemnation (Joh 3:18). As He Himself said ‘I do not judge you. He who rejects me and does not receive My sayings has a judge, the words that I have spoken will be his judge on the last Day’ (Joh 12:47-48).

Of course it was true that in some cases they would also result in men and women responding and being refined, His words would burn in men’s hearts, that was a very real part of their purpose, but in the majority of cases they would bring His hearers under the judgment of God because they refused to hear them (Luk 6:49; Luk 11:29-32), and into judgment because of the power of His words. In other word He is recognising, and drawing the attention of others to, the fact that His presence not only saves but judges, and that He is only too well aware that that judgment will not only happen in the last Day, although it will happen then, but for some was already approaching, a fact epitomised in Luk 13:1-5. Not only Jerusalem (although that suffered worst) but the whole of Palestine, and even the whole of Jewry, would groan over the Roman invasion in 66-70 AD and its consequences (Luk 13:35; Luk 21:20-24). And the world would continue to groan. Thus were all to recognise the world-shaking nature of His presence among them. The One Whose eyes are like a flame of fire brings mercy for His own and judgment on the erring church and on the world (Rev 1:14; Rev 2:18).

“And what do I desire, if it is already kindled?” or “How I wish that it was already kindled.” These are both possible translations. If we translate as the former this may indicate that the casting down of the fire having begun through His words and acts, He is satisfied that it is already kindled, and therefore He has nothing further to desire in that regard. But more probably it should be translated as the latter in which case it indicates His longing for that fire, the basis of which has been sown in His words, to be kindled into flame in order to produce its effects. He wants His words to burst into flame and bring about their ends one way or another. He longs to see God’s purposes moving forward, and recognises that in the end it can only be through the cross. It is that that will bring into stark focus the response of men and women to Him, the response that for many will issue in condemnation, but for others will result in life. Then will be the judgment of this world (Joh 12:31). Then will the glowing fire be fully established in its work of condemnation or salvation, of judgment or redemption. Then will come God’s judgment on Israel, out of which will spring salvation for all who believe, and yet at the same time even worse judgment for unbelieving Israel. Either way the words bring out the intensity of His feeling concerning the matter. His whole heart is in what He is doing.

Having all this in mind we may summarise the significance of the fire cast on them as follows:

It refers to His words both of salvation and judgment which He has already declared, and which have been proclaimed, which are yet to achieve their full effects. It is partly these words that will cause the divisions to be found within families and in the world.

It refers to His words yet to be spoken which will more and more emphasise judgment, although being continually paralleled by words of comfort, mercy and hope for His own. And we must see Him as very much aware that when He speaks what He declares comes about, whether it refers to salvation or judgment.

It refers to His coming control of history through His power and authority, through which His word will go forth triumphantly on behalf of those who are being saved (Mat 28:18-20), while at the same time resulting in judgment being poured on those who refuse to believe (Joh 12:47). As a result of His control of history suffering will come on the whole world (a suffering largely brought on it by itself) with the aim that through that suffering many might be brought to righteousness. This too will continually result in divisions in the world and in families and households.

Thus the fire that Jesus cast on the world and kindled, will carry on in its effects throughout history, resulting in salvation for ‘many’, but judgments on the majority, and will do so until the end when the unrighteous and the world will finally be consumed by fire (Rev 20:15; 2Pe 3:10).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Future Will Not All Be Rosy (12:49-53).

As Jesus contemplates the thought of the punishments which will be inflicted on the various unfaithful servants, it carries His thought forward on to what now awaits the world in terms of the severe treatment that is coming on those who called themselves His people, but were even now being unfaithful, and of those who were mistreating them and leading them astray (the chief priests, scribes and Pharisees in general), faithless servants all. They too were to be afflicted (Luk 13:35; Luk 21:20-24), something which would in the end include the whole world (Luk 21:10-11). And He describes this in terms of ‘casting fire’ on them. Yet at the same time He brings out that He Himself would go through great suffering for them in order that some of them might be ‘made straight’, in order to deliver them from Satan’s iron control (Luk 13:16). Some would bear the fire directly, but in the case of some He would take part of the fire on Himself, for the fire of His judgment, and the suffering He would endure, are here inextricably bound together.

This idea was contrary to the expectation of the Jewish people, although it should not have been for they had had plenty of warning. They probably thought that they had experienced their tribulation and looked forward into a future in which it was their hope that they would enjoy a world of peace and plenty. That was what many believed that the Messiah would introduce without them needing to do much about it. While it might all begin with a bloody encounter, in the end the Messiah would triumph, and then Israel would be exalted. But the last thing that most of them recognised or considered was the need for a change within themselves. In their view it was not they who needed to change, but the world situation. They were all right as they were. Let the Messiah rather concentrate on setting the world right. Then they could have ‘heavenly bliss’ on earth and still be as they were, the only change being that they would be better off.

Yet it was the very need for Israel to change that had been brought home to Jesus from the very beginning. He had experienced rejection at Nazareth (Luk 4:16-30). He had experienced heart-numbing apathy in Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum and recognised that it would occur elsewhere (Luk 10:10-15). He had come to recognise that this whole generation would on the whole not listen to His words (Luk 11:29-32), that the whole generation was asleep (Eph 5:14). And along with this He was aware of the enmity of Herod (Luk 9:9 Luk 13:31), and the plottings of the Scribes and Pharisees, and the growth of their hatred against Him (Luk 6:7; Luk 6:11; Luk 9:22; Luk 9:44; Luk 11:15) because they too would not receive His words. And so with this recognition had come the realisation that what was necessary was something that would shake up the world, something that would in fact split the world into two (Luk 12:1-12; Luk 12:51-53).

He thus saw it as necessary for Him to kindle a fire that would set the world alight, partly through His own suffering, and partly through what would follow. It was not to be a cosy fire. It was a fire that would bring division. For He recognised the division that would arise between those who would confess Him and those who would deny Him (Luk 12:8-9); between those who were His friends (Luk 12:4), and those who would seek to slay them (Luk 12:4); between those who received the gift of His Holy Spirit (Luk 11:13) so that the Holy Spirit would guide them when they needed Him (Luk 12:12), and those who blasphemed against the Holy Spirit by hardening their hearts against His word (Luk 12:10). And He knew that in danger of being included among these last were Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum (Luk 10:13-15) and many others. And that later they would persecute His disciples because they did not want their apathy disturbing. Thus He had no illusions about what lay ahead, and it clearly disturbed Him deeply

‘I am come to cast fire on the earth.’ This was a wake up call to His disciples. Did they really think that nothing was happening, and that He did not seem to be doing anything? Did they not see that He was already casting fire on the earth, for the unbelievers in Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum had already been consigned to judgment, together with the cities whose dust they themselves had shaken from their feet. And they would soon see more. For He knew that what He was bringing would be earthshaking to the world, so that the world might be stirred from its apathy, and from the grip of Satan (Luk 13:16), and that this could only be through fire, both through the fire of His words, and through the fiery judgments that would accompany them. And in parallel with this fact was that He Himself must also be overwhelmed by suffering. It is this last that makes this whole idea in character with Jesus. The suffering for both comes because there is no other way, none will deny the sufferings in the world, but He wants them to see that He Himself will suffer most at the heart of it.

And what fire would He cast down? In context it would be a fire that would first consume Him as He bore the sin of others (Luk 12:50; Luk 17:25), it was a fire that would take the false sense of peace from the world (Luk 12:51), it was a fire that would divide men and women in their thinking (Luk 12:51-53), it was a fire of persecution that would affect those who followed Him (Luk 6:22-23; Luk 12:4; Luk 21:12-18; Joh 16:2), it was a fire that would soon engulf Galilee and Jerusalem in Roman flames (Luk 21:20-24), it was a fire that would bring nation against nation, and kingdom against kingdom and bring natural disasters (Luk 21:10). And this would only be the beginning of sorrows. It was the fires of Revelation that would result from His opening of the seven-sealed scroll, the scroll opened by the Lamb Who had been slain (Revelation 5 onwards). It was a fire that would determine the whole future of the world.

Yet it was His longing that both would come to a speedy fulfilment, both the fire and the suffering that He must face, and He looked forward to neither. He would be glad when they were over. He would no doubt feel the same when out of His own suffering as the slain Lamb He opened the seven seals which brought into train the whole of the future (Revelation 5).

Perhaps the words that now follow were the result of His contemplation of the failure of the Servants in His parable concerning the future. As He contemplated the faithless steward who had had to be decapitated, and the high level slave who had had to be given a sound beating, and the low level slave who had also had to be beaten, even if it was a milder beating, it may well have brought home to Him that they were a picture of what lay ahead for mankind. For whatever the level of their punishment all would be servants who had failed Him in the purpose that He had for them, and these servants were thus typical of the failure of the world, who would suffer tribulation in century after century. So what He would now say may well have been because He saw in them a picture of the world’s failure, and especially of the failure of His people, and wanted to do something about it. By ‘beating’ the people He hoped to bring them to their senses, to bring them to listen to His words.

For in the end that parable had been about the world as it awaits His coming, and its concentration had been on the failure of those given responsibility within it, whether secular or spiritual, to fulfil their responsibility. It was because of the recognition of this failure that He was aware of the steps that He must Himself take in order to minimise it. By casting down fire on the world, partly in the form of His words, and the words of His followers, and partly through the resulting judgments, and by Himself suffering for it to the very depths, He would hope to produce success from failure. For when God’s judgments are in the world, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness (Isa 26:9-10 and see Isa 59:9-19)

Perhaps also the words that had followed the parable, ‘to whoever much is given, from him will be much required’, further reminded Him of Israel’s failure in their responsibility to the world. They had failed to move the world and so it was His responsibility as representing the new Israel to do so. He would not be a faithless servant.

But whatever it was something had moved Him to make this momentous declaration, this awesome pulling back of the curtain of the future, in order to bring home to them the great uncertainty of that future, both for his listeners and for the world, an uncertainty which would at least partly be due to Him. (It was, of course, uncertain from the world’s viewpoint, not from His). And it was a declaration unlike any that He had made before (although He would later expand on it in chapter 21). For they were direct words of the judgment that was coming on the world as a result of His coming, even though it was a judgment tempered with mercy for those who responded. And it was a judgment which would result from His own actions.

Fire was an apt picture of the future. The fire of God would shortly come down on His disciples (Act 2:1-3), Israel would shortly know the fire of judgment in their rebellion against Rome. His own people would experience the fire of persecution (1Pe 4:12), the world would face continual fire (Rev 8:5; Rev 8:7-8; Rev 8:10; Rev 9:2; Rev 9:17-18), and would in the end be destroyed by fire (2Pe 3:7). The final Judgment would result in fire for all but His elect (Luk 3:17; Rev 20:15). For the fire is His fire whether for righteousness or for judgment.

So Jesus declares that in order to give them a ‘wake-up’ call, and in order to try to save them from this final failure, He would ‘cast fire’ on them, a fire which would result in judgment on the majority and blessing on the few. This would partly be by means of His words and their effects (see here Jer 5:14; Jer 23:29). For like Moses His words would include blessings and cursings. In one sense His enlightening word would spread like wildfire throughout the world, dividing the world into those who heard it (and had their eyes opened and were turned from the power of Satan to God – Act 26:18) and those who failed to do so and reacted against it, and experienced the fires of judgment. And yet there was a very real sense in which it would also be His powerful word that would bring about the judgments that would follow. The future of all depended on His word, whether of salvation or judgment.

Some hint of this has already come out in His words concerning Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. These were powerful words which had themselves sealed the fate of those cities. But it would also occur through His future words, which while helping the righteous would seal the fate of the unrighteous. For through His words, which were effective in carrying out what they declared (Isa 55:11), He would bring some into salvation and others into suffering and judgment, and yet even this latter was so that some of them might escape the final Judgment. They were words which were pressing on His heart, and which were bursting to come out. And it was clearly something that He did not like the thought of.

In a sense these next verses can be compared with Luk 9:21-24. There out of the blue He had unexpectedly revealed an in-depth description of His own relationship with the Father, and what it could mean for His own. For a brief moment He had opened Heaven to us, and manifested the glory of both Father and Son. It has been called ‘the bolt from the Johannine blue’ because of its similarity to the teaching of Jesus in John’s Gospel. Here also out of the blue He opens Heaven and reveals a summary of the future and of how unpleasant it will be for Israel, and eventually for the world. It will be a future of fire. And what is most poignant is that it will be a future that would be brought about by Him, a future that must be understood in terms of Luk 13:5; Luk 13:34-35; Luk 17:22; Luk 19:27; Luk 19:42-44; Luk 21:6; Luk 21:10-26, even though out of it will come also the redeemed. As a Lamb Who has been slain He will open the scroll of the future (Revelation 5 onwards). We might call it ‘a bolt from the Revelation blue’.

His momentous words were as follows:

“I have come to cast fire on the earth,

And how I wish it was already kindled.”

“And I have a baptism (‘an overwhelming’) to be baptised with,

And how am I straitened (afflicted) till it be accomplished!”

Do you think that I am come to bring peace on the earth?

I tell you No, but rather division.

For there shall from now on be five in a house,

Divided three against two, and two against three,

They will be divided father against son, and son against father,

Mother against daughter, and daughter against her mother,

Mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

We can see at once that there is something very ominous about these words. Notice how their significance is almost tearing Him apart. ‘How I wish it was already kindled — how I am afflicted until it be accomplished.’ Note also the contrast of the first as only being ‘kindled’, for the fire will burn long into the future, and the second as being ‘accomplished’, that is, as something that will succeed and be fulfilled in His lifetime.

And it is also deeply significant that the fire that He has come to cast on earth, is paralleled with the overwhelming suffering that He Himself is going to endure. If He must bring suffering and judgment on the world, as He must, they must be made to recognise that it is from the travail of His own soul (Isa 53:11). He too will endure great suffering on behalf of the world. For it is through both these means that He seeks to bring salvation to all in the world who will respond. That is precisely the significance of the final verses in the group (Luk 12:51-53). They indicate that some will respond and others will not. And it will be His fire that will be what causes the division between them.

So His way ahead is to bring fire down on the world, and for Himself to experience it by Himself enduring fiery trial, a concoction which will bring salvation to those who believe in Him. It is not a cosy view, but one of salvation through suffering, first His and then theirs, (both for believers – Col 1:24, and for unbelievers) and will later be vividly portrayed in terms of ‘the suffering Lamb as it had been slain’ Who will open the seals of the scroll which contains the world’s destiny of suffering (Rev 5:1 onwards). And He cannot wait until it has begun (has been kindled) for it is through this process that the world’s redemption will finally be worked out.

Putting it briefly in one sentence we could see Him as saying, ‘You have heard what I said about the servants who will fail Me, and how they will suffer. Do not think that suffering is only for them, and that you will escape suffering, nor that I have come to bring you peace and an easy time. For I am rather bringing you into something which is going to put you too through much anguish and will rend you in two. And yet remember as it does so, that I have suffered too along with you, and for your sakes, and that its purpose is to make you consider righteousness and truth and partake of the benefit of My suffering. For it is when God’s judgments are in the earth that the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness (Isa 26:9)’.

Let us analyse the passage further:

a “I came to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish it was already kindled!” (Luk 12:49).

b “And I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how I am straitened till it be accomplished!” (Luk 12:50).

c “Do you think that I am come to give peace in the earth? I tell you, No, but rather division” (Luk 12:51).

b “For there shall be from now on five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three” (Luk 12:52).

a “They will be divided, father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against her mother; mother in law against her daughter in law, and daughter in law against her mother in law” (Luk 12:53).

Central to the interpretation of the above is ‘c’, which must determine the overall trend of the whole passage. It declares that Jesus has come not to bring peace but division, and that their whole conception of the Messiah has, up to now, been wrong. Thus we would expect to find reference to both lack of peace and division throughout the verses. Certainly both are apparent in the second half, and thus in view of this we would expect to find in the first part the cause of this lack of peace and of division, an answer to why they will be so divided and why there will be no peace. This makes it clear that the fire that is cast on the earth, and the baptism with which He must be baptised are what in some way must bring all this about. That must be the first basis of any interpretation.

The second point that we need to take into account is that the order of the phrases probably suggests that the casting of fire which begins to affect the world precedes or parallels the ‘baptism’, the overwhelming suffering that He is to experience, rather than follows it. And nothing is more certain than that the seeds of Israel’s suffering commenced almost immediately, being already foreshadowed in Luk 13:1-5, which is the firstfruit of suffering, and had indeed been already guaranteed by the declarations on the apathetic cities, and the apathetic current generation, and will be guaranteed from now on (Luk 10:10-15; Luk 11:29-32). With these pointers in view we will now consider the passage in more depth.

The first thing to recognise is the passion behind both ideas. There is a depth of feeling here that indicates deep emotion. ‘How I wish it were already kindled, how I am afflicted until it is accomplished.’ He is foreseeing two things, which must in some way be related, that are tearing at His very heart, and He longs that they were behind Him. It gives Him no pleasure to cast fire on the earth. We will look initially at the first in its Scriptural background.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The dissension caused by the Gospel:

v. 49. I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?

v. 50. But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!

v. 51. Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division;

v. 52. for from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two and two against three.

v. 53. The father shall be divided against the son and the son against the father, the mother against the daughter and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

See Mat 10:34-36. The Gospel is to some people, whose minds the god of this world has blinded, a savor of death unto death, 2Co 2:16. It brings a fire of controversy which results in fierce trials and conflicts for the believers. The sooner this fire therefore is kindled, the better it will be for the faithful. And it is not as if Jesus would go out unscathed while His followers must bear the many crosses that are laid upon them because of their discipleship. The baptism of His last great Passion looms up before Him with such a threatening aspect that He is pressed on every side, both with fervent desire and with fear on account of the last ordeal. And so the disciples must not live in the foolish hope and idea that they will escape the same or a similar ordeal. Contention, dissension, strife, enmity will follow the preaching of the cross at all times, causing divisions even in the midst of the most closely knit households. Friendships of long years’ standing, the most intimate ties of blood-relationship have been disrupted because of opposition to the Gospel. This the believers of all times should know, lest. , they be offended. They dare not expect their lot to be more pleasant than that of their Lord.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Luk 12:49. I am come to send fire, &c. Jesus concluded the charge with foretelling the divisions which should be occasioned by his gospel: I am come to send fire on the earth, (see on Mat 10:34.) and what will I, if it be already kindled? , what wish I. “Do I wish to escape that fire myself, if it be already kindled?” The fire that our Lord here speaks of, as the effect of his coming, being the fire of divisionandpersecution, it was already kindled, and about to seize himself: but by this question, and whathe immediately subjoins, he declared he was willing to be the first victim who should be consumed in that fire, as it would tend so abundantly to the spiritual welfare of mankind. Our blessed Lord seems to have glowed with the most ardent zeal for the good of the human race, when he breathed out this generous wish. Some render it, and how do I wish, or how desirous am I, that it were already kindled?

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Luk 12:49 f. The sequence of thought is found in this, that the whole of that earnest sense of responsibility, which characterizes the faithfulness just demanded, must be only infinitely intensified by the heavy trials of the near future, which the Lord brings vividly before His view.

] Fire , is a figurative designation, not of the Holy Spirit , as most of the Fathers and others, including Bengel, will have it, nor of the word of God with its purifying power (Bleek); but, as is manifest from Luk 12:51 ff., of the vehement spiritual excitement , forcing its way through all earthly relations, and loosing their closest ties, which Christ was destined to kindle. The lighting up of this fire, which by means of His teaching and work He had already prepared, was to be effected by His death (see , Luk 12:52 ), which became the subject of offence, as, on the other hand, of His divine courage of faith and life (comp. Luk 2:35 ). The expression itself . proceeded from the consciousness of His heavenly origin. Comp. Mat 10:34 .

. . .] It is the usual and the correct view, held also by Kuinoel, Olshausen, de Wette, Bleek, which interprets: and how earnestly I wish, if (that) it were already kindled ! , Theophylact. Regarding the , see on Mat 7:14 . Moreover, the usus loquendi of with (instead of the more confident , as with , etc.; see on Mar 15:44 ) is not to be disputed. See Sir 23:14 : ; Herod. ix. 14, also vi. 52: . Accordingly, there is no sufficient reason for the view of Grotius, which disjoins the utterance into question and answer: And what do I wish? If it should be already kindled ! This is less simple, and fails to bring out the correspondence between the expression in question and the parallel exclamation in Luk 12:50 . The particle is used not merely with the optative (see Pflugk, ad Eur. Hec . 836), but also with the indicative in the imperfect and aorist in the sense of utinam, dummodo ; in the latter case the non-accomplishment is known to the person who utters the wish. Comp. Luk 19:42 ; Jos 7:7 ; Grotius in loc .; Klotz, ad Devar . p. 516; in the Greek prose writers it is usual to find or in such a sense. Bornemann takes for cur , and as : “ et cur ignem volo in terram conjicere, cum jam accensus sit ? remota quaestione: non opus est accendam .” But without considering the extremely insipid thought which is thus expressed, Luk 12:52 in this way requires that the kindling of the fire should be regarded as still future. This, moreover, is in opposition to Ewald: and what will I ( can I be surprised ), if it be already kindled ?

Jesus entertains the wish that the fire were already kindled, because between the present time and this kindling lay His approaching grievous passion , which must still first be undergone; see Luk 12:50 .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

b. Luk 12:49-59

49I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled [how much do I wish that it were already kindled!15]? 50But I have a baptism to be baptizedwith; and how am I straitened16 till it be accomplished! 51Suppose ye that I am cometo give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather [only] division: 52For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two againstthree. [They shall be divided, father against son17]53The father shall be divided against the son, and the [om., the] son against the [om., the] father; the [om., the] mother against the [om., the] daughter, and the [om., the] daughter against the mother; the [om., the] mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the [om., the] daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 54And he said also to the people, When ye see a [the18]cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so55it is. And when ye see the south wind blow [blowing], ye say, There will be heat;56and it cometh to pass. Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of theearth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time? 57Yea, and why even of yourselves58judge ye not what is right? When [For as] thou goest [proceedest] with thine adversary to the magistrate, as thou art in the way, give diligence that thou mayest be delivered from him; lest he hale [drag] thee to the judge, and the judge deliver theeto the officer, and the officer cast thee into prison. 59I tell thee, thou shalt not depart thence, till thou hast paid the very last [even the last] mite [].

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Luk 12:49. I am come.To the question in what connection this part of the Saviours discourse stands with what immediately precedes, the neutiquam cohrent (Kuinoel) is certainly, it seems to me, the simplest possible answer. At least the method in which Olshausen and others give the connection of the ideas, is in our eyes excessively forced. But if we insist on having some connection, then the view of Meyer, that the greatness of the responsibility, Luk 12:48, as well as the whole momentousness of the previously demanded faithfulness, is still more strengthened by the difficulty of the state of things, Luk 12:49, and so is meant to be made the more palpable to the disciples, is perhaps the most simple.

Luk 12:49. Send fire on the earth.The question is, what fire the Saviour here means. The answer that we have here to understand a fire of controversy, appears indeed to be the most admissible, but has, however, this difficulty, that then Luk 12:51 is really only a weak repetition of that which has been already said in Luk 12:49. If is entirely the same with , Mat 10:34, and , Luk 12:51, it cannot then be well conceived that the Saviour could have unconditionally wished the kindling of such a fire. On the other hand, there is not the least reason for here, with many of the fathers and some modern expositors, immediately understanding the fire of the Holy Spirit, for which would certainly have been no very fitting expression. It is best, without doubt, to proceed from the general signification of the metaphorical expression, and to understand the extraordinary movement of mind which Christ should bring to pass when His Gospel should everywhere be proclaimed, comp. Luk 24:32. As fire has on the one hand a warming and purifying, but on the other a dissolving and destroying, force, not otherwise is it with the manifestation of Christ, of which the Gospel bears testimony. It is, however, by no means to be denied that the Saviour has in mind the latter rather than the former side of the fact. It does not, however, come into the fullest prominence until Luk 12:51. Division had already been effected by the Saviours advent, but the fire was not to blaze up in its full power until after His death and His exaltation.

; The general interpretation (Kuinoel, Bretschneider, De Wette, who appeal to Mat 7:14): How much I could wish that it were already kindled, has the signification of against it. Better Schleiermacher: And what more do I wish if it is even already kindled? But it will best agree with the character of the discourse if we with Grotius and Meyer translate: And what will I? Would that it were already kindled! This wish, however, the Saviour does not cherish only because between now and the kindling of this fire lay His near and bitter Passion in the midst, which must first be endured (Meyer), but rather because, besides the harmful and ruinous, the salutary force of the fire also stands before His view, and because He knows that only through these flames can all impurity be purged away from the earth.

Luk 12:50. A baptism to be baptized with.Over against the heavenly fire which He sends, stands the earthly water of the suffering which previously to that must roll entirely over Him.To be baptized.An image of the depth and intensity of this suffering, like a baptism performed by immersion. Comp. Mat 20:22; Joh 1:33.How am I straitened, .As far from being only a pressure of longing and desire (Euth. Zigab., De Wette) as from meaning merely, oppressed by anxiety and fear (Meyer and others); on the other hand the one must be joined with the other. Without doubt there is here a , not less than Joh 12:27; 2Co 2:4, and whoever in this human reluctation of the Lord against His suffering finds any cause of offence, places himself in a Docetic position. But in the heart of the holy Son of Man such a shrinking back from suffering, and the wish that it might already have been overcome, could not arise without His feeling at the same time the pressure of a love which must be baptized with this baptism, only because it itself has willed it. A similar union of anxiety and longing we see in the woman, Joh 16:21, who when her hour comes is seized with fear and anguish, and yet in the midst of this fear feels love and inward longing soon to press her child to her heart.

Luk 12:51. Suppose ye.Comp. Mat 10:34-36. It was only perplexity on the part of some expositors when they believed that here the language respecting the consequence of the Saviours manifestation was used exclusively , not . On the other hand, we may say that the Saviour here speaks not of the highest and ultimate, but yet of a very essential purpose of His manifestation on earth, which, however, was in its turn to be a means for the attainment of a higher end, of a peace, namely, which could be attained through this strife alone. The division which the Saviour brought on earth was and is so general, that He in a certain sense could say of Himself that He establishes nothing less than ( ) discord. This phenomenon is so far from being surprising and fortuitous, that, on the contrary, it has been foreseen and will be met, not as something good and desirable in itself, but as the only way in which He could erect His kingdom of peace here below upon an immovable foundation. An analogous representation, see Luk 2:34; Joh 9:39. Even because Christ is the Sun of Righteousness, it cannot but be that torches of strife and funeral pyres should be kindled by its fiery glow. When the Holy One of God comes into personal contact with an unholy world, a shock and strife is inevitable, and that not only against Him personally, but also among men themselves, inasmuch as these begin to distinguish themselves into adversaries and subjects of His kingdom.

Luk 12:52. Five in one house.Here also is the mention of the uneven number five peculiar to Luke, as in the statement of the number of sparrows, Luk 12:6. When three stand against two and two against three, it is so much the more difficult to bring them together again. The holiest bonds are torn asunder, and as well in the male as also in the female sex does our Lord count friends and enemies, who on account of Him oppose one another. Non additur gener, nam hic aliam constituit familiam. Bengel. For the whole representation, compare the prophetical utterance, Mic 7:6. Only when the Saviour appears as the Prince of Peace can the disharmony between the three on the one hand and the two on the other hand be lastingly over.

Luk 12:54. And He said also to the people.Luke justly remarks that here the address of the Saviour to the disciples breaks off. What now follows is more adapted to the mixed throng of His listeners, among whom there were found also enemies and those of Pharisaical views. According to Mat 16:1 seq., the Saviour directed the next following censure very particularly against the Pharisees and Sadducees; the expressions, however, in the two Evangelists are more or less different. If we are disposed to demonstrate the connection with the previous section, we may find it in this, that the Saviour now proceeds to the statement of the source from which so much discord and misunderstanding flow as He had just described; namely, the failure to recognize the signs of the times, which unequivocally enough pointed to the Messianic kingdom.

A cloud.The cloud which rose out of the west, on the side of the sea, was regarded as the sign of approaching rain, see 1Ki 18:44, while the south wind was considered as a sign of heat to be expected, Job 37:17. The here-mentioned is undoubtedly that glowing heat which was produced in Palestine by the south wind. In the LXX = . In most mournful contrast with the sound intelligence of these weather-prophets, which in daily life at once decides (), and whose prophecies also commonly are fulfilled, stands the general blindness in reference to that which was infinitely more momentous and quite as easy to discover.

Luk 12:56. Ye hypocrites.We cannot mistake the fact that here towards the end, the discourse again visibly inclines towards its point of departure. Very fittingly could the Saviour address the people in a mass thus, if we consider how deeply the leaven of the Pharisees had already penetrated into their minds. Since they were capable of distinguishing the face of the sky as well as that of the earth (Joh 4:35), it could only be from a lack of good-will that they left wholly unnoticed the rain and the vital warmth which in these days had been imparted, in the kingdom of God. What lies nearest to the heart of man his understanding judges best; but since the advent of a spiritual kingdom of God was to them essentially indifferent, they do not account it even worth the trouble of giving heed to these signs in the moral world, which so convincingly afforded proof that the fulness of the time had arrived. The Saviour, on the other hand, will have His contemporaries become meteorologists in the spiritual sphere, and therefore He afterwards also rebukes them that they did not know the time of their visitation, Luk 19:44.

Luk 12:57. Of your own selves, , Luk 21:30. There was lacking to them, as appears from what precedes, the gift necessary for clearly distinguishing in the spiritual sphere what was right (, secernere). When they discerned the face of the sky and the earth (Luk 12:56), they did this indeed , independently, without any necessity that it should first have been told them by another. So did it beseem them in other relations also to apply the standard of a natural science of truth and duty, without always first awaiting the inspiration of their spiritual guides.Luk 12:58-59 the Saviour makes a special case in which they could apply such a , while He leaves it to their own understanding and conscience themselves to make a profitable application of the here-given rules to much higher and weightier concerns.

Luk 12:58. For as. here introduces the statement of the special case, by the delineation of which the Saviour more particularly explains His meaning. Comp. Mat 5:25-26. He presupposes that they are with their adversary () on the way to their legitimate ruler (), as appears from Luk 12:59, because a controversy had arisen about an unpaid debt; and if they now should persevere even to the end in the way of litigation, the consequences were very easy to be foreseen. The adversary with whom one cannot reconcile himself drags () the debtor before the righteous judge (), and he, after he has ascertained the claim of debt to be well established, delivers the accused to the bailiff, who throws him into prison (, exactor, executor, a legally appointed functionary of the Roman tribunals, whom Matthew has designated only in general as ). And there must one remain, until even the very last and least portion of the debt in its last item is paid. Matthew mentions , Luke still more strongly . . The last farthing equals half a quadrant.How much mischief, therefore, does one prevent, and how fully he acts in his own interest, when he comes to terms with such an , enters into a satisfactory compromise before the last decisive step is taken! , a Latinism, perhaps as a Roman formula of law sufficiently familiar to Theophilus.

The Saviour, therefore, here urges His hearers in their own interest to placableness, and will have them by such a conduct show that they are in a condition to . Considered by itself alone the admonition has, therefore, the same intention as in the parallel passage in Matthew, only with the distinction that with Luke the juridical form of the process is brought out somewhat more in detail. If one inquires now in what connection this exhortation, Luk 12:57-59, stands with the previous verses, Luk 12:54-56, we acknowledge that we have not found in one of the interpreters an answer perfectly satisfactory to us. The thread connecting the different parts of Luke 12 becomes looser in proportion as the chapter hastens towards its end. In general, we may say that the Saviour here urges His hearers no longer to allow themselves to be so much led in their judgment by others as they had hitherto done, in consequence of which they also did not recognize the signs of the times, Luk 12:54-56, but to see more with their own eyes. This His meaning He elucidates by an example, Luk 12:58-59; but neither in the letter nor the spirit of His words is a single proof contained that this example must be interpreted as a parable, and that He wishes thereby to admonish them to repent betimes, because the Messianic decision is so near, that they may not be exposed to the judgment of Gehenna. (Meyer.) It is wholly arbitrary to see in the an allusion to the devil (Euth. Zigab.), to the poor (Michaelis), God (Meyer), or even to the law (Olshausen), and in the to see a representation of Gehenna. Nothing but the craving to find in Luk 12:57-59 a congruous conclusion to a well-connected discourse has here put the expositors on a false track. The Saviour, however, presents not a single proof for the opinion that He here is urging them on allegorically to repentance, and according to the representation of Mat 5:25, this saying has an entirely different sense. It is, without doubt, better, in case of necessity, to give up making out the connection which undoubtedly exists (Kuinoel, De Wette), which we, moreover, have by no means done, than to find under the simple sense of the words a deeper significance which no one amongst the first hearers, without a more particular intimation of the Saviour, could have found therein.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. As the Saviour has first admonished His disciples to watchfulness and faithfulness, the remaining part of His discourse, so far in particular as it is addressed to the Apostles, has such a direction as to prepare them for many kinds of strife and troubles, and to take away the scandal which they might otherwise have found when His cause, instead of overcoming, should be suppressed and opposed. The cause of this strife lay at least in part in the unreceptiveness and earthly-mindedness of the people, who neglected to give heed to the signs of the times, and, like blind men, slavishly followed their spiritual guides, instead of seeing with their own eyes.
2. In this whole utterance of our Lord, as far as it stands in direct relation to His own personality and kingdom, we see a striking revelation on the one hand of His truly human, on the other hand His truly Divine, nature. With a genuinely human feeling He shrinks back from His suffering and longs for the beginning of the conflict. But with Divine knowledge He calculates at the same time the consequences of the combat, and utters forth the indispensable necessity of His baptism of suffering, if the fire were really to be kindled upon earth.

3. Already more than once have we heard the Saviour speak with heavy-heartedness and deep feeling of His approaching Passion, but here is the first revelation of this genuinely human reluctance to enter upon the approaching conflict, which afterwards returns in heightened measure, Joh 12:27; Mat 26:38. This inner sorrow and pressure of love also constitutes a part of His hidden history of suffering.

4. It is one of the strongest arguments for the entirely unique significance of the personal manifestation of our Lord, that He calls forth such a discord in the sphere of humanity. The strongest sympathy or antipathy does He arouse, but in no case apathy. So much strife and blood the Gospel could never have caused, had not men been deeply persuaded on both sides that here there was to do with the Highest and Holiest.
5. The recognition of the signs of the times is one of the most sacred obligations which our Saviour imposes on all those who wish to be capable of passing an independent judgment on the concerns of His kingdom. However, the blindness of His contemporaries still shows itself continually under all manner of forms. Men who in the sphere of the natural life display a singular measure of sound understanding, are, and that in large numbers, dulness and unreceptiveness itself, when it comes to the distinguishing of light and darkness, truth and illusion, from one another in the spiritual sphere. A sad proof of the power which the corruption of the sinful heart exercises upon the darkened understanding. See Rom 1:18; Eph 4:18.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The fire which Christ kindles on earth: 1. A fire which warms what is cold; 2. purifies what is impure; 3. consumes what is evil.Suffering, a baptism.For the Christian a threefold baptism necessary: 1. The water-baptism of sprinkling; 2. the spiritual baptism of renewal; 3. the fire-baptism of trial.The intensity of anguish and love with which the Saviour foresees His approaching Passion.The discord which Christ has brought upon earth: 1. A surprising phenomenon, if we look, a. at the King, Psalms 72, b. at the fundamental law of the kingdom of God, Joh 13:35; John 2. an explicable phenomenon if we direct our eye, a. to the severity of the Gospel, b. to the sinfulness of the human heart; 3. a momentous phenomenon, a. this strife is a proof of the high significance, b. and means for the establishment, the purification, and the victory of Christianity.The proclamation of the conflict excited by His appearance a proof: 1. Of the infallible omniscience; 2. of the holy earnestness; 3. of the infinite love of our Lord.Of all false peace the King of the kingdom of truth makes an end.The fire kindled in the old earth no curse but a blessing.Even our nearest earthly kindred we must, in case of need, deny for Christs sake.The spiritual world also, like the kingdom of nature, has its signs.The noticing of the signs of the times a duty: 1. Commended by heavenly Wisdom 2. forgotten by sinful blindness.The Saviour will have one judge independently what is true and good.How our own interest urges us to the duty of placableness.There comes a time in which the law is left to run its course, and every hope of grace is cut off.

Starke:Canstein:When the Gospel is preached in right earnest, it is as if a conflagration breaks out, which every one runs to quench, and thereby is faith proved.Quesnel:Jesus had ever His suffering before His eyes; His love to the cross shames the effeminacy and delicacy of Christians, who are so unwilling to suffer.Three against two; so was it in Abrahams house: Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac against Hagar and Ishmael.There is hardly a house in which the evil are not mingled with the good and the good with the evil.Brentius:Between the kingdom of Christ and of Satan no peace exists, not even in eternity; let no one, therefore, give himself any fruitless trouble to bring it about.Bibl. Wirt.:Man, discern the time of grace, which to discern is indeed not difficult.The proving of spiritual things is a duty even of the simple.Cramer:It is better to compose matters of controversy by friendly dealing and brotherly reconciliation, than by the sharp law and sentence of the judge, 1Co 6:7In hell there is no payment possible, therefore the plague of the same will have no end.

Heubner:If all reforming and heating of peoples heads is wrong and illegal, then Christianity would be the most illegal of anything; but everything depends upon whether the revolutionizing and incendiarism comes from selfishness or from God.Even he who is already resolved to duty feels, nevertheless, shrinking of heart till the conflict is fought out.When tempests approach thee, strengthen thyself in Jesus.What is great and noble requires severe conflict.The false judging of Jesus is our own fault.Ehrenberg:Fire as the power: 1. Of separating; 2. of consuming; 3. of warming.Tholuck:Of what fire does Christ speak here? Is it that which has just now been kindled in the Evangelical Church? With reference to the separation of the Lutheran from the United Church (in the second volume of his Sermons, p. 412 seq.).Schenkel:The controversy which Christ has brought upon earth, how we have: 1. To wish for it; 2. to fear it; 3. to endure it.T. Muller:The destroying might of Christianity: 1. In the outer; 2. in the inner, world.

Footnotes:

[15][Luk 12:49. ; Van Oosterzee takes it thus: What do I wish? Would that it were already kindled! This gives essentially the same sense as the rendering proposed above, but, as Bleek and Meyer remark, it is a less natural turn of expression. The use of for , when the object of the wish is less confidently expected, or known not to exist, is sufficiently well established. I will cite one example, adduced by Meyer from Sir 23:14 : .C. C. S.]

[16][Luk 12:50.Norton translates this: what a weight is on me till it be accomplished!; which, though paraphrastic, appears to express the sense very exactly.C. C. S.]

[17]Luk 12:53.According to the most probable reading, that of Lachmann and Tischendorf, , with B., D., [Cod. Sin.,] T., U., cursives, Schid., Vulgate, Copt., Itala, and several fathers. The singular of the Recepta was spontaneously suggested by the immediately following substantives. Symmetry, however, requires the verb. [In allusion to Tischendorfs and Lachmanns joining with the previous clause.C. C. S.]

[18][Luk 12:54.That is, the usual cloud brought by the prevailing west or northwest wind.C. C. S.] The original appears to have been inadvertently omitted in A., B., [Cod. Sin.,] L., X., ., and cursives, on account of the preceding TE. (Meyer.)

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

(49) I am come to send fire on the earth, and what will I, if it be already kindled? (50) But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished? (51) Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: (52) For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. (53) The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

Various have been the judgment of the godly concerning those expressions of our Lord, in the opening of this paragraph. What fire the Lord Jesus alluded to, doth not seem decidedly plain, so as to determine whose judgment is correct amidst the various opinions which have been formed, in relation to it. Some have conceived that it had respect to the work of God the Holy Ghost, Isa 4:4 ; Mal 3:2 . And others refer it to the consequent persecution which followed Christ’s preaching: and they conclude that the words of Jesus so explain it. And in relation to the baptism Jesus speaks of , equal difficulty, in point of determination, hath arisen. It could not mean the baptism of water, for this Christ had gone through. Neither of the Holy Ghost, for Jesus was full of the Holy Ghost, Luk 4:1 . The general tide of commentators runs in the supposition that he referred to our Lord’s sufferings. But I confess it doth not strike me in that point of view; for what was the whole life of Jesus, upon earth anymore than a baptism? if so, from sorrows and exercises. But I leave the decision of it with the Lord, only begging to observe, that if Jesus was so straitened for the accomplishment of this baptism, whatever it might be, how ought the Lord’s people to be on the continual look out, and humble waitings; for the baptisms of God the Holy Ghost?

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

49 I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?

Ver. 49. To send fire on the earth ] That is, that persecution that is evangelii genius, guardian of the gospel, as Calvin wrote to the French king, and dogs at the heels the preaching of the truth.

And what will I if it be already kindled? ] As if he should say, Let it kindle as soon as it will, I am contented; I know much good will come of it.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

49 53. ] The connexion appears to be this: the immense and awful difference between the faithful and unfaithful servants brings our Lord to the ground of that difference, and its necessary development in the progress of His kingdom on earth.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

49. ] It is extraordinary that the official announcement of the Baptist (ch. Luk 3:16 ) . . connected with the mention of a baptism here, with the promise Act 1:5 , and the appearance Act 2:3 , so strikingly expressed as , have not kept the Commentators in general (Bleek is an exception) from falling into the blunder of imagining here that the fire is synonymous with, and means no more than, the discord and division which follow. The fire is, the gift of the Holy Spirit , the great crowning result of the sufferings and triumph of the Lord Jesus. To follow this out in all its references belongs to another place: see notes on Mar 9:49 , and Act 2:3 . This fire, in its purifying and separating effects on the mass of mankind, causes the afterwards spoken of.

The construction of . . . has been ever a matter of dispute, while the meaning is on all hands nearly agreed. The three prevalent explanations of it are: (1) which is Origen’s (app [89] ), and is adopted by Grot., and defended by Meyer [formerly] and Stier, making = , and rendering, and what will I? would that it were already kindled! Certainly thus there is nothing forced in the construction; we have for ‘ utinam ’ joined with aorist in Jos 7:7 ; but the abrupt short ejaculation seems unlike the usual character of our Lord’s discourses. It is true the structure of Joh 12:27 affords an instance of a similar question, ; and under similar circumstances, of His soul being troubled . (2) which Theophyl., Kuinoel, Olsh., De Wette, Bleek, &c. [so Meyer, edn. 5, see Moulton’s Winer, p. 562, note 3] adopt, taking = , as some do, adopting that reading, in Mat 7:14 (but see note there), and = , and rendering, How I wish that it were already kindled! But here we have serious difficulties of an idiomatic kind: is apparently never thus used and only after words of wondering, being grieved, &c.: see Mar 15:44 .

[89] apparently.

(3) That of Euthym [90] , Beza, &c., and the E. V., ‘What will I, if it be already kindled?’ i.e. ; ; Euth. This also presents no constructional, but a very great contextual difficulty; for by Luk 12:50 it evidently was not yet kindled; and even if this were overcome, the expression, evidently a deep one of personal anxiety (and be it remembered Who said it), would be vapid and unmeaning in the extreme.

[90] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116

All things then being considered, I prefer the first explanation.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Luk 12:49-53 . Not peace but division (Mat 10:34-36 ). This section is introduced by no connecting particle. Yet there is a certain affinity of thought. Strict fidelity demanded under penalties, but fidelity not easy; times of fierce trial and conflict awaiting you. I forewarn you, that ye may be forearmed.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Luk 12:49 . : the fire of a new faith, or religion, a burning enthusiasm in believers, creating fierce antagonism in unbelievers; deplorable but inevitable. , used by Mt. in reference to peace and war, where Lk. has . , etc., how much I wish it were already kindled; = and after to express the object of the wish, as in Sir 23:14 ( , you will wish you had not been born).

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Luke

FIRE ON EARTH

Luk 12:49 .

We have here one of the rare glimpses which our Lord gives us into His inmost heart, His thought of His mission, and His feelings about it. If familiarity had not weakened the impression, and dulled the edge, of these words, how startling they would seem to us! ‘I am come’-then, He was, before He came, and He came by His own voluntary act. A Jewish peasant says that He is going to set the world on fire-and He did it. But the triumphant certitude and consciousness of a large world-wide mission is all shadowed in the next clause. I need not trouble you with questions as to the precise translation of the words that follow. There may be differences of opinion about that, but I content myself with simply suggesting that a fair representation of the meaning would be, ‘How I wish that it was already kindled!’ There is a longing to fulfil the purpose of His coming and a sense that something has to be done first, and what that something if, our Lord goes on to say in the next verse. This desirable end can only be reached through a preliminary painful ordeal, ‘but I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished.’ If I might use such an incongruous figure, the fire that is to flash and flame through the world emerges from the dark waters of that baptism. Our Lord goes on still further to dwell upon the consequence of His mission and of His sufferings. And that, too, shadows the first triumphant thought of the fire that He was to send on earth. For, the baptism being accomplished, and the fire therefore being set at liberty to flame through the world, what follows? Glad reception? Yes, and angry rejection. Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, nay! but rather division.’ The fire, the baptism, and the sword; these three may sum up our Lord’s vision of the purpose, means, and mingled result of His mission. But it is only with regard to the first of these that I wish to speak now.

I. The fire which Christ longed to cast upon the earth.

Now, opinions differ as to what is meant by this fire Some would have, it to mean the glow of love kindled in believing hearts, and others explain it by other human emotions or by the transformation effected in the world by Christ’s coming. But while these things are the results of the fire kindled on earth, that fire itself means not these effects, but the cause of them. It is brought before it kindles a flame on earth.

He does not kindle it simply in humanity, but He launches it into the midst of humanity. It is something from above that He flings down upon the earth. So it is not merely a quickened intelligence, a higher moral life, or any other of the spiritual and religious transformations which are effected in the world by the mission of Christ that is primarily to be kept in view here, but it is the Heaven-sent cause of these transformations and that flame. If we catch the celestial fire, we shall flash and blaze, but the fire which we catch is not originated on earth. In a word it is God’s Divine Spirit which Christ came to communicate to the world.

I need not remind you, I suppose, how such an interpretation of the words before us is in entire correspondence with the symbolism both of the Old and New Testament. I do not dwell upon the former at all, and with regard to the latter I need only remind you of the great words by which the Forerunner of the Lord set forth His mighty work, in contrast with the superficial cleansing which John himself had to proclaim. ‘I indeed baptize you with water, but He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.’ I need only point to the Pentecost, and the symbol there, of which the central point was the cloven tongues, which symbolised not only the speech which follows from all deep conviction, but the descent from above of the Spirit of God, who is the Spirit of burning, on each bowed and willing head. With these analogies to guide us, I think we shall not go far wrong if we see in the words of my text our Lord’s great symbolical promise that the issue of His mission shall be to bring into the heart of the world, so to speak, and to lodge in the midst of humanity which is one great whole, a new divine influence that shall flame and burn through the world.

So, then, my text opens out into thoughts of the many-sided applications of this symbol. What hopes for the world and ourselves are suggested by that fire? Let us stick to the symbol closely, and we shall then best understand the many-sided blessings that flash and coruscate in the gift of the Spirit.

It is the gift of life. No doubt, here and there in Scripture, fire stands for a symbol of destroying power. But that is a less frequent use than that in which it stands as a symbol of life. In a very real sense life is warmth and death is cold. Is not respiration a kind of combustion? Do not physiologists tell us that? Is not the centre of the system and the father of all physical life that great blazing sun which radiates heat? And is not this promise, ‘I will send fire on the earth,’ the assurance that into the midst of our death there shall come the quick energy of a living Spirit which shall give us to possess some shadow of the immortal Being from which itself flows?

But, beyond that, there is another great promise here, of a quickening energy. I use the word ‘quickening,’ not in the sense of life-giving, but in the sense of stimulating. We talk about ‘the flame of genius,’ the ‘fervour of conviction,’ about ‘fiery zeal,’ about ‘burning earnestness,’ and the like; and, conversely, we speak of ‘cold caution,’ and ‘chill indifference,’ and so on. Fire means love, zeal, swift energy. This, then, is another side of this great promise, that into the torpor of our sluggish lives He is waiting to infuse a swift Spirit that shall make us glow and flame with earnestness, burn with love, aspire with desire, cleave to Him with the fervour of conviction, and be, in some measure, like those mighty spirits that stand before the Throne, the seraphim that burn with adoration and glow with rapture. A fire that shall destroy all our sluggishness, and change it into swift energy of glad obedience, may be kindled in our spirits by the Holy Spirit whom Christ gives.

Still farther, the promise of my text sets forth, not only life-giving and stimulating energy, but purifying power. Fire cleanses, as many an ancient ritual recognised. For instance, the thought that underlay even that savage ‘passing the children through the fire to Moloch’ was, that thus passed, humanity was cleansed from its stains. And that is true. Every man must be cleansed, if he is cleansed at all, by the touch of fire. If you take a piece of foul clay, and push it into a furnace, as it warms it whitens, and you can see the stains melting off it as the fire exercises its beneficent and purifying mastery. So the promise to us is of a great Spirit that will come, and by communicating His warmth will dissipate our foulness, and the sins that are enwrought into the substance of our natures will exhale from the heated surface, and disappear. The ore is flung into the blast furnace, and the scum rises to the surface, and may be ladled off, and the pure stream, cleansed because it is heated, flows out without scoriae or ash. All that was ‘fuel for the fire’ is burned; and what remains is more truly itself and more precious. And so, brother, you and I have, for our hope of cleansing, that we shall be passed through the fire, and dwell in the everlasting burnings of a Divine Spirit and a changeless love.

The last thought suggested by the metaphor is that it promises not only life-giving, stimulating, purifying, but also transforming and assimilating energy. For every lump of coal in your scuttles may be a parable; black and heavy, it is cast into the fire, and there it is turned into the likeness of the flame which it catches and itself begins to glow, and redden, and crackle, and break into a blaze. That is like what you and I may experience if we will. The incense rises in smoke to the heavens when it is heated: and our souls aspire and ascend, an odour of a sweet smell, acceptable to God, when the fire of that Divine Spirit has loosed them from the bonds that bind them to earth, and changed them into His own likeness, We all are ‘changed from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord.’

So I think if you take these plain teachings of this symbol you learn something of the operations of that Divine Spirit to which our Lord pointed in the great words of my text.

II. And now I have a second thought to suggest-viz., what Christ had to do before His longing could be satisfied.

He longed, but the longing wish was not able to bring that on which it was fixed. He had come to send this divine fire upon the earth; but there was something that stood in the way; and something needed to be done as a preliminary before the ultimate purpose of His coming could be accomplished. What that was, as I have already tried to point out, the subsequent verse tells us. I do not need, nor would it be congruous with my present purpose, to comment upon it at any length. We all know what He meant by the ‘baptism,’ that He had to be baptized with, and what were the dark waters into which He had to pass, and beneath which His sacred head had to be plunged. We all know that by the ‘baptism’ He meant His passion and His Cross. I do not dwell, either, upon the words of pathetic human shrinking with which His vision of the Cross is here accompanied, but I simply wish to signalise one thing, that in the estimation of Jesus Christ Himself it was not in His power to kindle this holy fire in humanity until He had died for men’s sins. That must come first; the Cross must precede Pentecost. There can be no Divine Spirit in His full and loftiest powers poured out upon humanity until the Sacrifice has been offered on the Cross for the sins of the world. We cannot read all the deep reasons in the divine nature, and in human receptivity, which make that sequence absolutely necessary, and that preliminary indispensable. But this, at least, we know, that the Divine Spirit whom Christ gives uses as His instrument and sword the completed revelation which Christ completed in His Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension, and that, until His weapon was fashioned, He could not come.

That thought is distinctly laid down in many places in Scripture, to which I need not refer in more than a word. For instance, the Apostle John tells us that, when our Lord spoke in a cognate figure about the rivers of water which should flow from them who believed on Him, He spake of that Holy Spirit who ‘was not given because that Jesus was not yet glorified.’ We remember the words in the upper chamber, ‘If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart I will send Him unto you.’ But enough for us that He recognised the necessity, and that here His baptism of suffering comes into view, not so much for what it was itself, the sacrifice for the world’s sin, as for that to which it was the necessary preliminary and introduction, the bestowment on humanity of the gift of the Divine Spirit. The old Greek legend of the Titan that stole fire from heaven tells us that he brought it to earth in a reed. Our Christ brings the heavenly fire in the fragile, hollow reed of His humanity, and the reed has to be broken in order that the fire may blaze out. ‘How I wish that it were kindled! but I have a baptism to be baptized with.’

III. Lastly, what the world has to do to receive the fire.

Take these triumphant words of our Lord about what He was to do after His Cross, and contrast with them the world as it is to-day, ay! and the Church as it is to-day. What has become of the fire? Has it died down into grey ashes, choked with the cold results of its own former flaming power? Was Jesus Christ deceiving Himself? was He cherishing an illusion as to the significance and permanence of the results of His work in the world? No! There is a difference between B.C. and A.D. which can only be accounted for by the fulfilment of the promise in my text, that He did bring fire and set the world aflame. But the condition on which that fire will burn either through communities, society, humanity, or in an individual life, is trust in Him that gives it, and cleaving to Him, and the appropriate discipline. ‘This spake He of the Holy Spirit which they that believe on Him should receive.’

And they that do not believe upon Him-what of them? The fire is of no advantage to them. Some of you do as people in Swiss villages do where there is a conflagration-you cover over your houses with incombustible felts or other materials, and deluge them with water, in the hope that no spark may light on you. There is no way by which the fire can do its work on us except our opening our hearts for the Firebringer. When He comes He brings the vital spark with Him, and He plants it on the hearth of our hearts. Trust in Him, believe far more intensely than the most of Christian people of this day do in the reality of the gift of supernatural divine life from Jesus Christ. I do believe that hosts of professing Christians have no firm grip of this truth, and, alas! very little verification of it in their lives. Your heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. ‘Covet earnestly the best gifts’; and take care that you do not put the fire out-’quench not the Holy Spirit,’ as you will do if you ‘fulfil the lusts of the flesh.’ I remember once being down in the engine-room of an ocean-going steamer. There were the furnaces, large enough to drive an engine of five or six thousand horsepower. A few yards off there were the refrigerators, with ice hanging round the spigots that were put in to test the temperature. Ah! that is like many a Christian community, and many an individual Christian. Here is the fire; there is the frost. Brethren, let us seek to be baptized with fire, lest we should be cast into it, and be consumed by it.

END OP VOL. I.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Luk 12:49-53

49″I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled! 50But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! 51Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; 52for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. 53They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

Luk 12:49 “I have come to cast fire upon the earth” The word “fire” is placed first in the Greek sentence for emphasis (see Special Topic at Luk 3:17). In Joh 3:17-21 it states that Jesus did not come the first time as Judge, but as Savior. After being among fallen humans, He now wishes eschatological judgment was already present (cf. Luk 12:49 b). Gospel hearers are divided into two, and only two, groups by how they respond to Jesus and His message (cf. Luk 24:44-49).

“how I wish it were already kindled” Some see this as

1. a second class conditional sentence (cf. Bass-Debrunner-Funk, Greek Grammar of the New Testament, pp. 359-360)

2. a Semitic idiom (cf. Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts, p. 123)

3. A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, vol. 2, p. 182, takes ti as “how” and ei as “that” (hoti), but also admits, “it is not clear what this passage meant”

4. George M. Lamsa’s translation of the ancient Syriac (Aramaic) manuscripts is “and I wish to do it, if it has not already been kindled”

Jesus wants the Kingdom of God to be manifest on the earth (cf. Mat 6:10), even though there will be a great cost to Himself and others (the loss of unbelievers eternally and the persecution of believers temporarily).

Luk 12:50 “I have a baptism to undergo” The Greek has “a baptism to be baptized with.” From Mar 10:38 it is obvious that this does not refer to Jesus’ water baptism, but to

1. the persecution and rejection of His preaching

2. His testing in Gethsemane

3. His crucifixion on Calvary

Jesus saw Himself as the fulfillment of Gen 3:15 (the Promised Seed) and Isaiah 53 (Suffering Servant). He saw Psalms 22 as foreshadowing His own experience.

“how distressed” This term means a mental pressure (cf. Php 1:23). Jesus’ struggle is so clearly seen in Gethsemane (cf. Mar 14:32-42; Mat 26:36-46; and Luk 22:40-46).

Salvation may be free, but it was not cheap!

A good discussion of this verse is found in Hard Sayings of the Bible, pp. 472-475. This is a good resource book for difficult texts, both OT and NT. I commend it to you!

Luk 12:51 “Do not suppose that I came to grant peace on earth” See the parallel in Mat 10:34-39. Even the close family relationships in a Jewish home will experience division over Jesus. There is a priority commitment needed to follow Him! Believers form a new family, the family of God (cf. Luk 8:21; Luk 11:27-28)!

Luk 12:53 This may be a poem or dirge. It may be an allusion to Mic 7:6, because of the Matthew parallel (cf. Mat 10:35-36), which quotes Mic 7:6.

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

I am come = Icame, &c.

send. Greek. ballo. In fourteen out of the eighteen occurrences in Luke, rendered “cast”. See verses: Luk 28:88.

fire. See Joe 2:30, &c. Had the nation received Him, all that the prophets had spoken would have been fulfilled. So would it have been had Peter’s proclamation been received (Act 5:18-26). See note on Luk 12:51.

on = into. Greek. eis. App-104. But all the texts read epi (App-104. ix. 3). earth. Greek. ge. App-129.

what will I . . . ? = what do I wish? Figure of speech Aposiopesis, App-6(no answer being required or given).

if it be, &c. Another Aposiopesis (App-6) repeated. The Lord was “straitened “(Luk 12:50). The nation had not yet finally rejected Him. App-118.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

49-53.] The connexion appears to be this:-the immense and awful difference between the faithful and unfaithful servants brings our Lord to the ground of that difference, and its necessary development in the progress of His kingdom on earth.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Luk 12:49. , fire) A fire which is to be wished for, the fire of spiritual ardour. [The love of God.-V. g.] See ch. Luk 3:16; Mat 10:37, compared with what precedes and follows. The Lord continues His former discourse, which calls men from earthly to heavenly things; and gradually returns to those subjects which He had been speaking of before the interruption. See Luk 12:13; Luk 12:12.-) viz. from heaven, to send.- , on or into the earth) That fire is not natural to the earth [not sprung of earth]: therefore He does not say, , in earth [the distinction is lost by Engl. Vers. rendering both on earth], as in Luk 12:51.- , what will I) The Present, I will, I wish, for I would, I would wish, is appropriate to a thing much wished for and sure to be accomplished: What further need I wish, if (when) the fire be already kindled? The conflict preceded the kindling of the fire. It was kindled on Pentecost: Acts 2.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Luk 12:49-59

13. DIVISIVE INFLUENCE OF JESUS

Luk 12:49-59

49 I came to cast fire upon the earth;-There has been much discussion as to the difficulties involved in this verse; it has received a variety of interpretations and many conflicting comments. No speculation need ‘be advanced as to the meaning of this verse. Jesus had just stressed the necessity of watchfulness and readiness; this led him to refer to one object of his coming, to the sufferings he should endure, and the effect of the gospel in producing divisions among people. He simply declared that he came to “cast fire upon the earth.” Fire was a powerful purifier. (Mal 3:2.) There have been many different meanings given to “fire” as used here. Some think that it may mean the fire of destruction; others the fire spoken of by John the Baptist (Mat 3:11);still others think that it refers to the fires of persecution. “Fire” cannot here be a symbol of blessings; Jesus had just emphasized the fact that punishment would be meted out to those who were unfaithful; the fire would represent the process of purification, and also the judgment.

50 But I have a baptism-Jesus here calls his suffering a baptism; it is an overwhelming in suffering. He had challenged James and John, when they asked for the chief seats in his kingdom, if they could be baptized with his baptism. (Mat 20:22 , Mar 10:32.) The cross was before Jesus at the time that he spoke these words and he said: “How am I straitened till it be accomplished!” The Greek word “baptizo” means overwhelm, plunge, dip, immerse; hence, Jesus on the cross was to be overwhelmed with sorrow, suffering and death. There is implied in this figure not only the painful submersion, a dying, but also a joyful rising. Jesus was “straitened” until this should be accomplished. “Straitened” means pressed, as it were on every side with anxiety; Paul expresses the same idea in Php 1:23. Jesus lived daily with the cross in view.

51, 52 Think ye that I am come to give peace-Here Jesus teaches that strife and persecution are to be expected as a consequence of his proclaiming the will of God to the people; one should not shrink from the fear of disturbing people by preaching the truth. Christ is the Prince of Peace; but in a sinful world, a righteous king can have and give peace only by destroying error and evil; to do this will bring war; not because Christ and his people have the spirit of strife and war, but because the truth they urge is resisted, and made the occasion for strife, division, and contention by others. The conflict that may be waged among the different advocates of error will often unite in their opposition to the truth. The truth taught by Jesus is opposed to error; there can be no compromise between truth and error. When one member of the household accepts the truth and others reject it, there is opposition and antagonism.

53 They shall be divided, father against son,-The purifying process of the truth of God would occasion division among those bound by the closest and most sacred ties. Some in the house would accept the truth and some reject; then the division would fall between even father and son, the tender affection of mother and daughter would be broken, and so stoutly would the gospel be resisted that angry persecutions would follow, as is sadly pictured here by the words of Jesus. This teaching of Jesus has caused divisions in many homes; almost in every community there may be found sad illustrations of the divisive teachings of Jesus. Terrible commotions must arise; old social affinities be broken up; the ties of household be rent asunder; some will love more strongly than ever before; but the many will hate with bitterness. Jesus wanted his disciples to know that such would be the result when the truth of God was preached. We need not be surprised to see the same resulting today.

54 And he said to the multitudes-Jesus now turns to the multitudes again as in verse 14. There are similar teachings in Mat 5:25 f; Mat 16:1 f. There is some difference in the phraseology, but the teaching is similar. In Matthew the Pharisees and Sadducees were asking for a sign from heaven as they often did. These signs of the weather are given; they have a more or less general application. Jesus does not verify the signs and make them invariable; he recites the signs which they were accustomed to giving in conversation with each other. They claimed to be able to discern the weather conditions, but were unable to understand the signs of the time with respect to the Messiah; hence, Jesus rebukes them.

55 And when ye see a south wind blowing,-The south wind came from the Arabian desert and reached Palestine from the south; it was extremely hot. (Job 37:17.) Jesus here continues his rebuke to the multitudes. They could read the signs of rain in the rising of the cloud from the Mediterranean Sea on the west (1Ki 18:44);they also knew that a south wind soon brought heat; but they did not know the signs of the time with respect to the Messiah; they should have known both from the prophets and from the work that Jesus did among them.

56, 57 Ye hypocrites, ye know how to interpret-A “hypocrite” is a pretender, a dissembler; one who assumes to be what he is not. This statement of Jesus refers to verse 1 of this chapter. These people could read the signs of rain in the clouds and foretell the heat waves by the wind from the south, but they could not see the clear and sure signs of the presence of the Son of God among them. He had taught them as never man taught; he had worked signs and wonders in their presence; the miracles of healing which he had wrought among them all bore witness to his claim as the Messiah; the spotless purity of his life and the wisdom and perfection of his teaching emphasized his claim. They were rebuked and condemned for their pretended wisdom.

58, 59 For as thou art going with thine adversary-A man under indictment for crime against his adversary and on his way for trial is admonished to settle the case before the trial comes on; it can be settled easier out of court than to be followed by a long-drawn-out lawsuit, in which animosity is stirred up. The process of trial may move on with such intricacies that the outcome, though the claim be just, may result in condemnation; hence, it is wise to settle it, if it can be done, before the judge or jury pronounces sentence. If one is on the way to the magistrate with his adversary in law, whom he has wronged, it is right to become reconciled with him before he drags him to the judge and the judge pass the sentence and inflict the punishment. The application is that they should be reconciled to God and be discharged from the punishment due for their sins. The multitude to whom Jesus was speaking understood the physical facts concerning the wind and rain, but they were ignorant of the signs of the times about the Messiah.

Thou shalt by no means come out-This is the conclusion of the application that Jesus made of his parable. The Jewish nation was under indictment for great national sin against God; it was at that time being brought to issue on the momentous question of receiving their longpromised Messiah, and through him, making peace with their offended God. They were at that time moving on to the courtroom of the Great Judge; the hour of trial for the nation as well as for individuals was at hand. They should make peace with their adversary while they had opportunity to do so. Some think that Jesus makes the application only to the nation, while others think that the principle is the same whether applied to a nation or an individual.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

the Great Divider

Luk 12:49-59

As Prometheus, in the old Greek fable, brought fire from above in a reed, so Christ brought the fire of the Holy Spirit in the frail lantern of His humanity. But, first, He had to pass through a baptism of tears and blood. He was under pressure to enter it, because impatient to get through with it. Here was the prelude of Calvary. And what was true of our Lord must be true of His Church. Always the sword, always strife, always division, where the gospel begins to ferment like leaven in human hearts.

The signs of the time pointed to a climax of Hebrew history, for which most of His contemporaries were unprepared. The sands in Gods hour-glass were running out. This was the great requirement of the hour-get right with God. The warning is applicable to us all, but it was specially spoken of the brief interval which, like the silence that precedes a thunder storm, preceded the fall of Jerusalem.

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

The Offence Of The Cross — Luk 12:49-59

I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: for from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And He said also to the people, When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is. And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass. Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time? Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right? When thou goest with thine adversary to the magistrate, as thou art in the way, give diligence that thou mayest be delivered from him; lest he hale thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and the officer cast thee into prison. I tell thee, thou shalt not depart thence, till thou hast paid the very last mite – Luk 12:49-59.

In the previous verses we noticed that our Saviour is coming again, thus indicating that He was leaving the world for the time being. He left by the way of the Mount of Olives, the cross, and the tomb. He was going away because of the attitude toward Him of His own people, Israel, and of the world in general: He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. In Hos 5:15 we read, I will go and return to My place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek My face: i: their affliction they will seek Me early. When He came in humiliation the angels announced His birth, proclaiming, Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. But men refused to acknowledge Him. He was rejected and crucified. In addressing the people of Israel Peter said, And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. The people of Israel did not recognize in the lowly Saviour, the promised King of the prophetic Scriptures.

In His absence His gospel is to be proclaimed everywhere. When men receive that gospel and come out definitely for the Lord, they, like Him, will be rejected by the world. Christ said in His great High Priestly prayer, They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. It means something to be a Christian; it means something to be identified with the One whom the world has rejected. And so as the world hated and rejected Him we need not be surprised if it hates and rejects us-these are the consequences of the cross. Sometime ago when a vote was taken on the best-loved song sung over the radio, The Old Rugged Cross was found to be the most popular in the thousands of answers which poured into the offices of one of our leading newspapers. But I am sure there are a vast number of people who sing of The Old Rugged Cross, who do not sense the meaning of the cross. Singing of the cross moves their hearts; but they have never yet trusted the One who died upon that cross, nor taken their places in identification with Him in His rejection.

In the opening verses of the present section our Lord refers to this rejection and to that which was to be accomplished on the cross. He said, I am come to send fire on the earth, and what will I, if it be already kindled? The symbol of fire speaks of God acting in judgment against sin. Jesus came not to condemn men but to save them; yet the world put itself in the place of condemnation by rejecting Him. Gods test is, What is your attitude toward My Son? or, What think ye of Christ? If men receive Him, if they trust Him, if they take their places with Him, then they enter into peace and blessedness; but if they spurn Him, then they expose themselves to the wrath and judgment of God. Jesus said, But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! He was referring to that baptism of divine judgment which He was to undergo on the cross. We noticed in connection with Johns baptism that it was unto repentance. When people confessed their sins he led them into the waters of baptism. Baptism did not cleanse them from sin but signified repentance. The people went down into the waters of baptism, confessing that they were sinners and that they deserved to die. Jesus took His place with these sinners in this baptism, as pledging Himself to settle for their sins, though He was the sinless One. It was as though He were endorsing the notes which all these debtors were giving to God. When one endorses a note the day eventually comes when it falls due. If the debtor cannot pay, then the endorser must do it. Jesus had endorsed the notes for all these people. Now three-and-one-half years had passed and the fulness of time had come when the notes must be paid, when everything must be settled; and He saw the cross before Him where He was to meet every claim God had against sinners. He said, I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! His own soul was moved deeply as He looked forward to that cross and to the judgment against sin which He was to endure there.

That cross was to divide the world. The Lord Jesus said, Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division. Did He not come to give peace? Peace was offered through Him. If men had received Him they would have had peace, but they spurned Him. For nearly two thousand years war and confusion have prevailed instead of the peace promised by the prophets of old through Messiahs advent. Peace will not come until He returns. In the meantime there will be strife and distress: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Thus it has been ever since He left this scene. Families and nations have been broken up and divided, all because of their attitude toward the Lord Jesus. Many of us know something of that. Those of you who were born into families where the gospel was not known and loved, and yet through the grace of God you were reached and saved, know something of the bitter opposition of those intimately related to you. It has cost many of you a great deal of suffering for the Lords sake. Other members of your family called you a fanatic and a fool because you trusted the Saviour. But it is for you to go on trusting Him and to be faithful to Him because of the grace that has saved you. He has pardoned you, and by that very fact you may be sure that He is interested in all your family. Ask Him to bring the others to Himself. But until that takes place do not become discouraged. Before you were saved you did not understand why Christians could give up gladly everything for Christs sake, and so you need not expect to be understood now by those who are still in their sins.

Let me warn you who are already Christians: Do not play fast and loose with the world which crucified your Lord. I always feel sad when earnest young people inquire if there is any harm in this or in that. It is better to ask, Will it honor my Lord? Will it make me more Christ-like? Will it make me more spiritual? You may do freely that which will have a tendency to create in your soul a greater appreciation of Christ.

He is coming back again one of these days! He went away as the rejected One; He is coming back as the glorified One. When He came the first time the people could not discern the signs of the times, and there is danger lest we should be just as ignorant in regard to His second coming. He said: When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straight-way ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is. And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass. They had the Scriptures of the prophets in their hands, and yet they could not see the signs which were being fulfilled all about them. We have the Bible today, and there are many things being fulfilled which tell us of the near return of our Lord; but how few there are who realize this! Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right? The standard is the Word of God. Study the Scriptures and you will learn from them the path you should take as you pass through this world. When thou goest with thine adversary to the magistrate, as thou art in the way, give diligence that thou mayest be delivered from him; lest he hale thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and the officer cast thee into prison. I tell thee, thou shalt not depart thence, till thou hast paid the very last mite. In other words, try to settle this matter out of court. Do not wait until the day of manifestation, whether you think of the judgment of the Christ-less at the Great White Throne, or whether you think of the day when the Lord shall descend from heaven and His own shall appear before Him. Do not leave matters to be straightened out till that day. It is better to face everything in this life and so obtain the certainty of divine forgiveness now. It will be too late to put things right in eternity. No man by any effort of his own, by any merit that he might accumulate, can ever meet the demands of Divine justice. But Christ has paid for all who will trust in Him! Justified by faith before God we are responsible to so behave toward our brethren here on earth that we shall keep a conscience void of offence toward God and man.

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

Chapter 82

I Am Come To Send Fire On The Earth

In Luk 12:49 the Lord Jesus Christ makes a statement that must be shocking to many as they read it. I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? What does that mean? I do not pretend to know all that is contained in this passage of Scripture, but there is much here to cheer the hearts of Gods elect, inspiring us with devotion, zeal in the cause of Christ, and joyful assurance and hope with regard to everlasting glory. And there is much here to strike terror in the hearts of rebels against the King of Glory and those who merely pretend to serve him in this world.

The Lord Jesus Christ is our Master and Lord, yet he washed his disciples feet. But that is not all. If we are his, if when he comes again he finds us watching for him and serving him, our Master and Lord declares that in that day, in all his robes of glory, he shall gird himself and serve us (Luk 12:35-37). What a remarkable declaration of grace!

Rebels Warned

Then, in Luk 12:38-40 our Saviour issues a warning to all who yet believe not. Believers are people who live in the anticipation, hope, and expectation of the Lords return. We are watching for him. Only the unbelieving imagine that he delays his coming. Suppose the Son of God were to appear in his glory as you read the words on this page. Where would you be? Have you lived all your life as if you were your own master? Do you refuse to bow to Christ, refuse to be his servant? Where will you be when the Lord Jesus returns in his glory? Read Luk 12:41-44 if you dare.

Then Peter said unto him, Lord, speakest thou this parable unto us, or even to all? And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath.

What rewards Christ has in store for his own people eye has not yet seen, ear has not yet heard, and heart has not yet conceived. We cannot begin to imagine the glory that awaits us in heaven! If we are Christs servants and the servants of our brethren in this world, he will make us rulers over all that he has in the world to come. I have no idea what that means; but its got to be good. It is a matter of absolute certainty. We shall reign with Christ forever! But that is not true of all.

But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken; The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers (Luk 12:45-46).

Hells Horrors

I have no idea what the horrors of hell are; but horrors they are! What horror, what terror, what everlasting torment shall be the punishment of every unfaithful steward! The preacher who is untrue to his professed calling! The professed believer, who says that he is a child of God, and a servant of Christ, and yet is unfaithful to his Master and Lord! The evil servant is pictured here as that man or woman who is religious, but self-serving, self-righteous, judgmental of others and cruel.

Read the Lords words again, and tremble. We are often accused of exaggerating about hell and the wrath of God in the world to come. But, the fact is, these things have not yet been spoken of adequately by any mortal. Read the Book of God. You will find in the holy scriptures expressions about hell, the wrath of God, and the torments of the damned that are unparalleled in the writings of men. Hell is a bottomless pit, a place of unquenchable fire, gnawing worms that never die, blackness, darkness, abandonment, everlasting hopelessness, fire and brimstone, torment, and death, an everlasting dying under an everlasting curse!

No, we do not overstate the matter. These are the words of him who loved as never a man loved, of him who is the most tender, gracious, compassionate spirit in the universe. The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. Added to everything else, those who find themselves in hell will forever be tormented by the fact that it is their just due!

And that servant, which knew his lords will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more (Luk 12:47-48).

Let each judge for himself or herself what talents, abilities, and opportunities the Lord God has put in your trust. We must never be content to have done this or that. We are responsible to serve our Master, our Lord, our God in proportion with the talents, abilities, and opportunities he has given us. Who among us is not humbled, broken, and ashamed before God when he thinks of this?

But this passage speaks distinctly of those who serve themselves and not God who made them. Great talents, gifts, abilities, and opportunities are great responsibilities. They are to be feared rather than coveted. Those who seek great things for themselves seek great damnation for their souls.

Gospel Fire

I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I if it be already kindled? (Luk 12:49). The Son of God did not come to send peace on the earth but a sword. Nothing in all the world is more unifying than the gospel of the grace of God; but nothing is more divisive. It is our Lords intention that it should be. The language of this passage in the original is very, very strong. John Trapp very accurately paraphrased it: I am come to send fire on the earth. Let the fire kindle as soon as it will. I am contented. I know much good will come of it.

The gospel of Christ is not a creed enshrined in a temple, but a fire burning in the soul. The gospel is not a theological system entombed in the brain, but a fire erupting in the heart. The gospel is not an icy system of ceremonies and rituals, but a fire burning in the earth.

Our Saviour here tells us that the gospel is an ardent, fervent, flaming thing a subject that stirs enthusiasm a theme that rouses intense devotion something that excites mens souls stirs them in the depths of their beings. The gospel does this both in those who love it and in those who hate it.

Men may be and often are indifferent about religion; but no one is indifferent about the gospel. It is a fire, the fire that our Lord Jesus came to send on the earth, the fire he was anxious to light by his death, resurrection, and exaltation, and by the out pouring of his Spirit upon all flesh.

But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished (Luk 12:50). How anxious our Lord was to suffer and die for us! How anxious he was to glorify the Father by his sacrifice as our Substitute! How anxious he was to redeem and save his people! How anxious he still is to bring us to glory. And as the direct result of his work at Calvary, there is a division among men. The gospel we preach is a fire in the earth, a dividing fire. Read Luk 12:51-53.

Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

This is exactly what Paul tells us in Gal 5:11. The cross of Christ is an offence to men. It always has been and always will be. The clear, simple preaching of the gospel, the message of the cross, the doctrine of the crucified Christ is an offence. It divides men. It divides friends. It divides families. It divides churches. Why? What is there in the gospel that causes such offence? The offence of the gospel is the fact that it is a declaration of salvation by grace alone, without works. It offends mans dignity, because it addresses all men as sinners. It offends mans wisdom, because it asserts that salvation comes only by divine revelation. Christ cannot be known by anyone, except he reveal himself to you and in you. It offends mans pride, because it declares that the only way of salvation is substitution, particular and effectual redemption, and imputed righteousness. It offends mans love of self, because it demands surrender to Christ as Lord. It offends mans sense of self worth, because it declares that salvation is by grace alone, distinguishing, free, sovereign, irresistible, effectual grace.

This gospel by which we are saved, this gospel which is always so divisive is the good news of heaven. It is how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, not the mere fact that Christ died, but how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures (1Co 15:1-3). He died as our voluntary Surety, our justice-satisfying Substitute, our effectual, sin-atoning Sacrifice. The gospel of Christ is the revelation of God as a just God and a Saviour, the revelation of the righteousness of God in the exercise of saving grace (Isa 45:21; Rom 3:24-26).

The Comparison

The Master says, I am come to send fire on the earth. Is not my Word like a fire? Saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? (Jer 23:29). How can the gospel be compared to fire. If you read the Book of God, you cannot avoid being struck with the extraordinary doctrine of the gospel revealed in its sacred pages. If ever the Lord God applies it to your heart, it will cease to be matters of curiosity, philosophy, and religious theory and debate. It will grab your soul, pierce your heart, and radically and forever change your life.

Perhaps that which first overwhelms the heart of a sinner in the experience of grace is the wondrous revelation of the love, mercy, and grace of God in Christ. What sweet, golden words these are: God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (Joh 3:16; 1Jn 3:1; 1Jn 3:16; 1Jn 4:9-10). Pause, O my soul, and think about the love of God! Eternal, electing love! Undeserved, free, and unconditional Love! Redeeming, sin-atoning love! Everlasting, unquenchable love! The Son of God loved me, and gave himself for me. Imagine that!

This is the wondrous revelation of the gospel: The love of God is revealed and known only in connection with the most astonishing display of justice, wrath, and severity imaginable The sacrifice of Gods own dear Son! If ever you come to know God, if ever God reveals his Son in you, if ever you learn the gospel, it will come to you like fire and ignite a fire in your soul. That is what Isaiah tells us he experienced (Isa 6:1-7)

The gospel of the grace of God is the sword of the Lord. And it is fire. It cannot sleep. The truths of the gospel: blood atonement, free justification, complete forgiveness, salvation by grace, are not just words and religious slogans. They are living principles. Like the breath in our lungs, they cannot be contained. They must break out. And when they do, they break out like fire in the earth. As soon as you confess the gospel of Christ in the ears of men, you will see the meaning of our Lords words, I am come to send fire on the earth and (with the fire) division.

But in Luke 12 our Lord Jesus is primarily talking about the preaching of the gospel. He who makes his ministers a flame of fire, puts fire in them. The fire in the preacher who is sent of God is not merely the fire of emotionalism, or the fire of brilliant intellect, or the fire of passionate oratory. It is something far greater. It is the power and influence of God the Holy Spirit upon his servants. The Holy Ghost sent down from heaven anoints all true evangelists, and is the true power and fire of every true gospel ministry. I will leave it to others to explain or debate that fact; but that is the fact.

God Almighty makes his ministers a flame of fire; and when they preach the gospel, the effect is always the same. It causes a division. Some believe and some believe not. And those who believe not always turn upon those who believe in a mad rage of fury, just as Cain did upon Abel.

The gospel, like fire, is wondrously pure. There is no mixture of impurity, error, or unrighteousness in it. It is free from every alloy of earth. And it is altogether spiritual. Christ, our Altar, is a spiritual altar, not a carnal one. Our sacrifices to our God are spiritual sacrifices, offered from spiritual motives. We worship God in the Spirit.

The gospel, like fire, gives light. It gives the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It sheds light upon our hearts and teaches us about ourselves, exposing our sin. The gospel gives us the light of Gods salvation, light about the world and time, and light about judgment and eternity.

The gospel, like fire, has a great testing quality. Nothing tests earthly things like fire. And nothing tests spiritual and heavenly things like the gospel (1Co 3:13). By that which is written in the Book of God, and by that alone we test and prove every doctrine, every ordinance, every religious practice, and every religious trend.

The gospel, like fire, is cheering and comforting. Those who have experienced it find that the cold of this world no longer pinches as it once did. We may be poor, but the gospels fire takes away the chilliness of poverty. We may be sick, but the gospel gives our souls joy even in the bodys decay. We may be slandered and neglected, but the gospel honours us in the sight of God. The gospel, wherever it is experienced in the heart, becomes a divine source of matchless consolation.

Fire is tremendously aggressive. So is the gospel of Christ. Take a few live coals, put them down in a pile of dry straw, and tell the fire, I have given you a pile of straw to burn. Now burn, burn away to your hearts content. That straw is yours. But you can go no further. You must burn only this pile of straw. Give off no sparks or flames. Ignite nothing else. While you are talking so foolishly, you will soon find your barn in a heap of ashes. Fire is aggressive. It is never naturally contained. So it is with the gospel. It spreads as naturally as fire and licks up everything in its path, wherever the Wind of Heaven blows it.

As fire ultimately prevails, so the gospel of Christ shall prevail. It is clearly revealed in scripture that as the world was once destroyed by water, it will a second time be destroyed by fire. It is predestined that earth and all the works that are therein shall be burnt up, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. Fire will win the day. The oceans roll and roar, as it were, in great pride, and laugh at fire; but fire will lick up the waters of the sea with its tongues of flame. All the cities, and nations, and elements of the earth shall soon be consumed with fire.

So it is with the gospel. The seas of iniquity shall ultimate dissolve before our God and his Christ. The day shall soon come when the fire of the gospel shall make the whole world to be a burnt-offering unto the Lord God Most High.

One more comparison: Like fire, the gospel consumes (Psa 39:4; Psa 39:10-11). When the Lord God, by the application of the gospel, makes a man to know his end, the measure of his days, and how frail he is, he is consumed by the revelation. Blessed Saviour, send your fire, and consume my unbelief, my pride and self-righteousness, consume my apathy and indifference, my love of the world, consume my heart, consume my life!

Now, for the love I bear his name,

What was my gain I count my loss;

My former pride I call my shame,

And nail my glory to his cross.

Yes, and I must and will esteem

All things but loss for Jesus sake:

O may my soul be found in him,

And of his righteousness partake.

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

come: Luk 12:51, Luk 12:52, Isa 11:4, Joe 2:30, Joe 2:31, Mal 3:2, Mal 3:3, Mal 4:1, Mat 3:10-12

and: Luk 11:53, Luk 11:54, Luk 13:31-33, Luk 19:39, Luk 19:40, Joh 9:4, Joh 11:8-10, Joh 12:17-19

Reciprocal: Mat 10:34 – that I Joh 12:27 – what Rev 8:5 – and filled

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

9

Fire is from PUB. Thayer defines it in this place by, “dissension,” and he explains the definition to be because “fire disorganizes and sunders things joined together and compact.” Robinson says the word symbolizes “strife and disunion.” These definitions and comments agree with the statements of Jesus in verses soon to follow. He does not mean that he wished people to be divided among themselves, but he did come to bring the teaching he knew would cause the dissension. Already kindled. Even as Jesus was speaking, there were conflicts among the people over his doctrine.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?

[And what will I, if it be already kindled?] What will I; seems to be used after the manner of the schools, where What do I say? is the same with I do say this; and so What do I decree or approve? is the same with This I do decree or approve. So What will I? is the same with This I will. Thus, in these words of our Saviour, What will I, if it be already kindled; the meaning is, This I will, that it be already kindled. Now what kind of fire this was which he would have already kindled, he himself explains Luk 12:51, and so on.

Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels

THE sayings of the Lord Jesus in these five verses are particularly weighty and suggestive. They unfold truths which every true Christian would do well to mark and digest. They explain things in the Church, and in the world, which at first sight are hard to be understood.

We learn for one thing from these verses how thoroughly the heart of Christ was set on finishing the work which He came into the world to do. He says, “I have a baptism to be baptized with,”-a baptism of suffering, of wounds, of agony, of blood, and of death. Yet none of these things moved Him. He adds, “How am I straitened till this baptism is accomplished!” The prospect of coming trouble did not deter Him for a moment. He was ready and willing to endure all things in order to provide eternal redemption for His people. Zeal for the cause He had taken in hand was like a burning fire within Him. To advance His Father’s glory, to open the door of life to a lost world, to provide a fountain for all sin and uncleanness by the sacrifice of Himself, were continually the uppermost thoughts of His mind. He was pressed in spirit till this mighty work was finished.

Forever let us bear in mind that all Christ’s sufferings on our behalf were endured willingly, voluntarily, and of His own free choice. They were not submitted to patiently merely because He could not avoid them. They were not borne without a murmur merely because He could not escape them. He lived a humble life for thirty-three years merely because He loved to do so. He died a death of agony with a willing and a ready mind. Both in life and death He was carrying out the eternal counsel whereby God was to be glorified and sinners were to be saved. He carried it out with all His heart, mighty as the struggle was which it entailed upon His flesh and blood. He delighted to do God’s will. He was straitened till it was accomplished.

Let us not doubt that the heart of Christ in heaven is the same that it was when He was upon earth. He feels as deep an interest now about the salvation of sinners as He did formerly about dying in their stead. Jesus never changes. He is the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever. There is in Him an infinite willingness to receive, pardon, justify, and deliver the souls of men from hell. Let us strive to realize that willingness, and learn to believe it without doubting, and repose on it without fear. It is a certain fact, if men would only believe it, that Christ is far more willing to save us than we are to be saved.

Let the zeal of our Lord and Master be an example to all His people. Let the recollection of His burning readiness to die for us be like a glowing coal in our memories, and constrain us to live to Him, and not to ourselves. Surely the thought of it should waken our sleeping hearts, and warm our cold affections, and make us anxious to redeem the time, and do something for His Praise. A zealous Savior ought to have zealous disciples.

We learn, for another thing, from these verses, how useless it is to expect universal peace and harmony from the preaching of the Gospel. The disciples, like most Jews of their day, were probably expecting Messiah’s kingdom immediately to appear. They thought the time was at hand when the wolf would lie down with the lamb, and men would not hurt or destroy any more. (Isa 11:9.) Our Lord saw what was in their hearts, and checked their untimely expectations with a striking saying-“Suppose ye that I am come to send peace on earth? I tell you, Nay, but rather division.”

There is something at first sight very startling in this saying. It seems hard to reconcile it with the song of angels, which spoke of “peace on earth” as the companion of Christ’s Gospel. (Luk 2:14.) Yet startling as the saying sounds, it is one which facts have proved to be literally true. Peace is undoubtedly the result of the Gospel wherever it is believed and received. But wherever there are hearers of the Gospel who are hardened, impenitent, and determined to have their sins, the very message of peace becomes the cause of division. They that live after the flesh will hate those that live after the Spirit. They that are resolved to live for the world will always be evil affected towards those that are resolved to serve Christ. We may lament this state of things, but we cannot prevent it. Grace and nature can no more amalgamate than oil and water. So long as men are disagreed upon first principles in religion, there can be no real cordiality between them. So long as some men are converted and some are unconverted, there can be no true peace.

Let us beware of unscriptural expectations. If we expect to see people of one heart and one mind, before they are converted, we shall continually be disappointed. Thousands of well-meaning persons now-a-days are continually crying out for more “unity” among Christians. To attain this they are ready to sacrifice almost anything, and to throw overboard even sound doctrine, if, by so doing, they can secure peace. Such people would do well to remember that even gold may be bought too dear, and that peace is useless if purchased at the expense of truth. Surely they have forgotten the words of Christ, “I came not to send peace but division.”

Let us never be moved by those who charge the Gospel with being the cause of strife and divisions upon earth. Such men only show their ignorance when they talk in this way. It is not the Gospel which is to blame, but the corrupt heart of man. It is not God’s glorious remedy which is in fault, but the diseased nature of Adam’s race, which, like a self-willed child, refuses the medicine provided for its cure. So long as some men and women will not repent and believe, and some will, there must needs be division. To be surprised at it is the height of folly. The very existence of division is one proof of Christ’s foresight, and of the truth of Christianity.

Let us thank God that a time is coming when there shall be no more divisions on earth, but all shall be of one mind. That time shall be when Jesus, the Prince of Peace, comes again in person, and puts down every enemy under His feet. When Satan is bound, when the wicked are separated from the righteous, and cast down to their own place, then, and not till then, will be perfect peace. For that blessed time let us wait, and watch, and pray. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Our divisions are but for a little season. Our peace shall endure to eternity.

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Notes-

v49.-[I am come to send fire.] Commentators differ widely about the meaning of the word “fire” in this verse.

1. Some think that it means the Holy Spirit, and refers to the gift of the Holy Ghost which was bestowed on the day of Pentecost. This, in the main, is the opinion of Chrysostom, Origen, Jerome, Athanasius, Ambrose, Gregory, Bede, Bernard, Cocceius, Cornelius Lapide, Alford, and Stier.

2. Some think that it means the “preaching of the Gospel.” This is the opinion of Theophylact, Cyril, Bucer, and Chemnitius.

3. Some think that it means the “word of God.” This is the opinion of Bullinger, Gualter, and Watson.

4. Some think that it means “love.” This is the opinion of Jansenius, Stella, Bengel, and, in part, of Euthymius.

5. Some think that it means the persecutions, afflictions, dissensions, and strifes which were to accompany the introduction of the Gospel into the world. This is the opinion of Tertullian, Brentius, Beza, Poole, Calovius, Trapp, Maldonatus, Hammond, Lightfoot, Whitby, Burkitt, Henry, Pearce, Scott, Barnes, and Burgon.

I decidedly adhere to this last opinion. The other four interpretations appear to me far-fetched and inconsistent with the context. Fire is an expression not unfrequently used in Scripture as an emblem of trouble and affliction. See Psa 66:12, and Isa 43:2. Moreover, it is worthy of remark, that “to send fire” is a common figure of speech in the Old Testament, to express sending trouble and affliction. Let the following passages be examined: Lam 1:13; Eze 39:6; Hos 8:14; Amo 2:2, Amo 2:5.

[What will I, if it be already kindled?] The Greek words so translated, are so remarkable, that some have thought they ought to be rendered, “What will I? Oh! that it were already kindled.” This is the opinion of Cocceius and Hammond. But I see no reason for disputing the correctness of our received translation.

Trapp’s paraphrase is a fair exposition of the meaning of the sentence: “Let the fire kindle as soon as it will, I am contented. I know much good will come of it.”

Barnes paraphrases the sentence thus: “What would I, but that it were kindled. Since it is necessary for the advancement of religion that such divisions should take place,-since the Gospel cannot be established without conflicts, strifes, and hatreds, I am even desirous that they should come.”

Lightfoot says,-“What will I,” seems to be used after the manner of the schools, where “What do I say” is the same with “I do say this;” and “What do I decree,” the same with, “I do decree this.” So, “What will I” is the same with “This I will.” The meaning is, “This I will, that it be already kindled.”

v50.-[A baptism.] This baptism is plainly not that of water, nor that of the Holy Ghost, but the baptism of suffering. It is the same baptism of which our Lord said to James and John, “Ye shall be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with.” (Mar 10:39.)

The expression is one of those which shows the wisdom of our translators of the Bible in adhering to the word “baptism,” and not rendering it either “immersion,” or “sprinkling.”

The effect of either of these words in the present verse, instead of “baptism,” needs only to be tried. Few would like to substitute for our present translation, “I have an immersion to be immersed with;” or, “I have a sprinkling to be sprinkled with.”

[How am I straitened.] The Greek word so translated is the same that is rendered in Act 18:5, “pressed;” and in 2Co 5:14, “constrains.” It is supposed by some that the feeling our Lord meant to express, was that of pain and distress in the prospect of His coming sufferings and crucifixion. This is the opinion of Stier. It seems, however, highly improbable.-It is supposed by others that the expression is like Joh 12:27, and Luk 22:42, and is meant to imply the conflict between our Lord’s human will, which naturally shrunk from suffering, and His divine will, which was set on accomplishing the work He came to do. This opinion is supported by many. Yet it does not seem quite to harmonize with the context, and is not altogether satisfactory.-The most probable view appears to be that which I have ventured to maintain in the exposition. The expression, “I am straitened,” was intended to show us the burning desire by which our Lord was constrained to accomplish the work of our redemption. It is like the saying, “With desire I have desired to eat the passover with you.” Theophylact and Euthymius both support this view.

v51.-[Nay; but rather division, &c.] The words of Burkitt on this passage are worth reading: “Our Saviour declares what will be the accidental event and effect, but not the natural tendency of His religion. We must distinguish between the intentional aim of Christ’s coming, and the accidental event of it. Christ’s intentional aim was to plant, propagate, and promote peace in the world. But through the lust and corruption of man’s nature, the issue and event of His coming is war and division; not that these are the genuine and natural fruits of the Gospel, but occasional and accidental only.”

v52.-[Five in one house divided, &c.] The expression in this and the following verse must not be pressed too literally. In some houses there are not five persons. In others there are many more than five.-In some families, where the work of conversion begins, the father and son are entirely of one mind, and so also are the mother and daughter.-The expressions are manifestly proverbial. The plain lesson they are meant to convey is this, that the Gospel will often produce divisions in families, and that even two persons who are most nearly related, may become estranged from one another, in consequence of one ‘being converted and the other not. That this is constantly the case, is well known to all who know anything of true religion. Few believers can look round the circle of their relatives and acquaintances, and not see striking illustrations of the truth of our Lord’s prophecy in this passage. Melancholy as it seems, it is a fact that nothing annoys some persons so much as the conversion of their relatives.

Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Luk 12:49. I came to cast fire upon the earth. This is explained by most, as referring to the gift of the Holy Spirit. This was a baptism (Luk 12:50) with fire, resulting in the division spoken of in Luk 12:51-53. Others refer it to the word of God. The view that the fire means the division itself obscures the whole passage; how could our Lord unconditionally wish for the latter. Cast upon the earth, refers to the powerful and sudden influence of the day of Pentecost. Others refer the clause to the extraordinary spiritual excitement which His gospel would awaken. But this was the result of the gift of the Holy Spirit.

How would I that it were already kindled! Our Lord here expresses a desire for kindling of this fire, but there is much difference of opinion as to the exact meaning of the original. The form we give is the most natural interpretation. Another view takes the clause as question and answer: What do I wish? Would that it were already kindled! The E. V., though most literal, is not correct; but the fire certainly was not yet kindled.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Our Saviour in these verses declares what will be the accidental event and effect, but not the natural tendency, of his religion; so that we must distinguish between the intentional aim of Christ’s coming, and the accidental event of it. Christ’s intentional aim, was to plant, propagate, and promote, peace in the world; but through the lusts and corruptions of men’s natures, the issue and event of his coming is war and division; not that these are the genuine and natural fruits of the gospel, but occasional and accidental only.

Hence learn, that the preaching of the gospel, and setting up the kingdom of Christ, though it be not the genuine and natural cause, yet it is the accidental occasion of all that war and tumult, of all that dissension and division, of all that distraction and confusion which the world abounds with: I am come to send fire on the earth. He is said to send the fire of dissension, because he foresaw this would be the certain consequence, though not the proper and natural effect, of the preaching of the gospel. There was another fire of Christ’s sending, the Holy Spirit; this was a fire to warm, not to burn, or if so, not men’s persons, but corruptions; but that seems not to be intended in this place.

Observe farther, the metaphor by which Christ sets forth his own sufferings; he styles them a baptism: I have a baptism to be baptized with. There is a threefold baptism spoken of: a baptism with water, a baptism of the Spirit; both these Christ had been baptized with: but the third was the baptism of blood: he was soon to be drenched and washed in his own blood, in the garden, and on the cross; and he was straitened or pained with desire, like a woman in travail, until his sufferings were accomplished.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Luk 12:49-53. I am come to send fire on earth Our Lord concludes his charge to his disciples with foretelling the divisions that should be occasioned by his gospel. See on Mat 10:34. As if he had said, After all that I have done and spoken to promote peace and love, so opposite is my doctrine to the prejudices and the lusts of men, and such are the violent contentions that my gospel will occasion, through the wickedness of those among whom it is preached, that it will seem as though I came to kindle a fire on earth, that should produce destructive and wide-spreading desolation. And what will I, if it be already kindled

, , which Dr. Campbell renders, What would I, but that it were kindled? which is, according to the Vulgate, quid volo, nisi ut accendatur? It is justly observed by Dr. Whitby, that , here rendered if, sometimes signifies that; as Act 26:23, where , is properly rendered, that Christ should suffer and that he should rise; and it is also a particle, of wishing: so Num 22:29, , I wish I had a sword; Isa 48:18, , O that thou hadst hearkened; Psa 81:13, , O that my people had hearkened, &c.; Luk 19:42, , O that thou hadst known! The sense, therefore, of this passage is, I come to deliver to the world a doctrine which will incense the world against me and my followers, and subject us to great sufferings, signified in Scripture by fire, and will baptize me in my own blood; but yet I am so far from being moved from prosecuting my Fathers pleasure, by the prospect of them, that I wish the time of my suffering were at hand, and my gospel were preached to the world. Of the baptism here spoken of, see on Mat 20:23. And how am I straitened , how am I pressed in spirit; (see Act 18:5;) till it be accomplished. He longed for the time when he should suffer and die, having an eye to the glorious issue of his sufferings. The words allude to a woman in travail, that is pained to be delivered, and welcomes her pains, because they hasten the birth of the child, and wishes them sharp and strong, that the work may be cut short. Christs sufferings were the travail of his soul, which he cheerfully underwent, in hope that he should by them see his seed. Isa 53:10-11. So much was his heart set upon the redemption and salvation of man. Suppose ye that I am come to send peace on earth By subduing all the nations of the world into one great monarchy, under the Jews, and establishing that temporal tranquillity and prosperity which you expect should attend the Messiahs kingdom? I tell you nay, but rather division For notwithstanding that my gospel is the gospel of peace, proclaiming peace between God and man, and enjoining all that embrace it to follow peace with all men; yet it will be so opposed and perverted, that, instead of peace and unity, discord, strife, and division will be frequently occasioned by it. For from henceforth On account of the introduction of my religion, there shall be five in one house divided, &c. Contentious heats and animosities will frequently arise in families; that part of the family which does not obey the gospel opposing and persecuting the part which obeys it. And this shall be the case even when those families consist of persons who stand in the nearest relations to each other; the father, for instance, differing with the son, and the son with the father. It may be proper to observe here; so many prophecies of the Old Testament speak of the peaceful state of the Messiahs kingdom (see Psa 72:7; Isa 2:4; Isa 11:6-9; Isa 65:25) that it is hard to say how Christ could completely answer the character of the Messiah if he should never establish peace, even universal peace, on earth. But the error of the Jews lay in supposing he was immediately to accomplish it; whereas the prophecies of the New Testament, especially those contained in the book of Revelation, show, and those of the Old Testament most plainly intimate, that this prosperous state of his kingdom was not only to be preceded by his own sufferings, but by a variety of persecutions, trials, and sufferings, which should in different degrees attend his followers, before the kingdoms of the earth became, by a general conversion, the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. Doddridge.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

After having thus followed the natural course of the conversation, Jesus returns to the thought from which it had started, the vanity of earthly goods. He shows how this truth directly applies to the present situation (Luk 12:49-53).

Vers. 49 and 50. The Character of the immediate Future.I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I if it be already kindled? Luk 12:50. But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!Is it a time, said Elisha to the unfaithful Gehazi, to receive lands and cattle when the hand of God is upon Israel, that is to say, when Shalmaneser is at the gates of Samaria? Is it a time for the believer to give himself up to the peaceable enjoyment of earthly goods when the great struggle is beginning? The Church is about to be born; Israel is about to perish, and the Holy Land to be given over to the Gentiles. Such is the connection, too moving to be expressed by a logical particle, which is implied by the remarkable asyndeton between Luk 12:48-49. , strictly, to throw a firebrand. Jesus feels that His presence is for the earth the brand which is to set everything on fire. Every fruitful thing, says M. Renan, is rich in wars. Jesus understood the fruitfulness of His work. The expression I am come, which Jesus frequently uses in the Syn., finds its only natural explanation in His lips in the consciousness which He had of His pre-existence. The fire in question here is not the fire of the Holy Spirit, as some of the Fathers thought. The sequel proves that it is the spiritual excitement produced in opposite directions by the coming of Jesus, whence will result the , the division, described from Luk 12:51 onwards. Two humanities will henceforth be in conflict within the bosom of every nation, under every roof: this thought profoundly moves the heart of the Prince of peace. Hence the broken style of the following words. The may be taken in the sense of that, which it often has, and in the sense of how: How I wish that this fire were already burning! (Olshausen, De Wette, Bleek.) But this meaning of the two words and , and especially of the second, is not very natural. Accordingly Grotius, Meyer, etc., have been led to admit two propositions,the one forming a question, the other the answer: And what will I? Oh that it only were already kindled! The sense is radically the same. But the second proposition would come too abruptly as an answer to the preceding. Ewald recurs to the idea of a single sentence, only he seeks to give to a meaning which better justifies the use of : And of what have I to complain if it be already kindled? This sense does not differ much from that which appears to us the most natural: What have I more to seek, since it is already kindled? This saying expresses a mournful satisfaction with the fact that this inevitable rending of humanity is already beginning, as proved by the event recorded Luk 12:1-12. Jesus submits to bring in war where He wished to establish peace. But it must be; it is His mission: I am come to…

Meantime this fire, which is already kindled, is far yet from bursting into a flame; in order to that there is a condition to be fulfilled, the thought of which weighs heavily on the heart of Jesus: there needs the fact which, by manifesting the deadly antagonism between the world and God, shall produce the division of which Jesus speaks between man and man; there needs the cross. Without the cross, the conflagration lighted on the earth by the presence of Jesus would very soon be extinguished, and the world would speedily fall back to its undisturbed level; hence Luk 12:50. The is adversative: But though the fire is already kindled, it needs, in order that it may blaze forth, that… The baptism in question here is the same as that of which Jesus speaks, Mat 20:22 (at least if the expressions analogous to these are authentic in that passage). Jesus certainly makes an allusion to His baptism at the hands of His forerunner, which included a consecration to death. The figure is as follows: Jesus sees Himself about to be plunged into a bath of flame, from which He shall come forth the torch which shall set the whole world on fire.

The Lord expresses with perfect candour the impression of terror which is produced in Him by the necessity of going through this furnace of suffering. , to be closely pressed (straitened), sometimes by the power of love (2Co 5:14); elsewhere, by that of conflicting desires (Php 1:23); here, doubtless, by mournful impatience to have done with a painful task. He is under pressure to enter into this suffering, because He is in haste to get out of it. A prelude of Gethsemane, says Gess in an admirable passage on this discourse. Here, indeed, we have the first crisis of that agony of which we catch a second indication, Joh 12:27 : Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? and which is breathed forth in all its intensity in Gethsemane. Luke alone has preserved to us the memorial of this first revelation of the inmost feelings of Jesus.

After this saying, which is a sort of parenthesis drawn forth by the impression produced on Him by the thought in the preceding verse, He resumes at Luk 12:51 the development of His declaration, Luk 12:49.

Vers. 51-53. The Picture of the Future just declared.Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, nay; but division. 52. For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. 53. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law., suppose ye, is no doubt aimed at the illusion with which the disciples flattered themselves, yet hoping for the establishment of the Messianic kingdom without struggles or sufferings (Luk 19:11). Jesus does not deny that peace should be the final result of His work; but certainly He denies that it will be its immediate effect.

The simplest solution of the phrase is to take it as an abbreviation of : Nothing else than…

Vers. 52 and 53 describe the fire lighted by Jesus. By the preaching of the disciples, the conflagration spreads; with their arrival, it invades every family one after another. But the fifth commandment itself must give way to a look directed to Him….Undoubtedly it is God who has formed the natural bonds between men; but Jesus introduces a new principle, holier than the bond of nature, to unite men to one another (Gess, p. 22).

Even Holtzmann observes that the five persons indicated, Luk 12:52, are expressly enumerated, Luk 12:53 : father, son, mother, daughter, daughter-in-law. Matthew (Mat 10:35) has not preserved this delicate touch; are we to think that Luke invented this nice precision, or that Matthew, finding it in the common document, has obliterated it? Two suppositions equally improbable. indicates hostility, and with more energy in the last two members, where this prep. is construed with the acc.; probably because between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law religious hostility is strengthened by previous natural animosity.

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

THE FIERY BAPTISM

Luk 12:49-53. I came to send fire on the earth, and what do I wish if it is already kindled? This is none other than the fiery baptism of Pentecost, which Jesus came to send on the earth, thus inaugurating a new era in the kingdom of grace. I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it is perfected! Here is an allusion to the baptism of blood which awaited Him on Calvary. Do you think that I came to send peace on the earth? I tell you, Nay, but division; for there shall be five in one house divided; two against three, and three against two shall be divided; the father against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against the daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law. You see here, from the connection, that division follows, as a logical sequence, the baptism of fire. When people get sanctified wholly, they become out-and-out for God, who leads them in different ways, pursuant to His blessed will. Consequently, division will be the result. There is only one way to have harmony, and that is for all to get the fiery baptism. The grip of Satan is so tight that he is almost certain to hold some of the members of a family or a Church. In that case there will always be division, as holiness can not harmonize with carnality.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Luk 12:49-59. Signs of the Times.For parallels see below. Jesus is oppressed with the thought of the future till it is accomplished.

Luk 12:49 f. Lk. only. Fire is what Jesus has come to cast on the earth (cf. Luk 3:16 f.); here it probably means division (Luk 12:51; Mt. sword). Would that the discord had set init would mean that the Kingdom was nigh. But something else has to precede the Kingdom, perhaps also the discord, viz., His death, here referred to as a baptism, i.e. a new consecration (cf. Mar 10:38). The passage should be compared with the more formal predictions of the Passion, which may have been edited after the event.

Luk 12:51-53. Cf. Mat 10:34-36. Lk. is more elaboratehe pictures a household of husband and wife, son and his wife, and daughter. The two men quarrel and the elder woman quarrels with the two younger ones. Such hostility on the part of elders to the young who are attracted by the Christian message is well illustrated in the modern mission field, especially in India.

Luk 12:54-56. Mat 16:2-4*. Lk. has the better setting. The Jews recognise the signs of the weather, they refuse to recognise the signs of the approaching Judgment, with the need for repentance. The sign is of course Jesus Himself and His message. Even apart from signs they ought to judge what is right (Luk 12:57), and to do it while there is yet time, like a debtor satisfying his creditor before the case comes into court, where only utter condemnation is to be looked for.

Luk 12:58 f. Mat 5:25 f.* Perhaps the setting is better in Lk., where the moral is implied that men must repent before God in view of the imminence of the Judgment.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

Verse 49

Fire on the earth;–the terrible struggle and opposition by which the progress of the gospel was to be resisted.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

12:49 {13} I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?

(13) The gospel is the only reason of peace between the godly, and so it is the occasion of great trouble among the wicked.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

5. The coming distress 12:49-59

Jesus’ teaching on the same occasion continued. He clarified next that His disciples could anticipate a period of intense persecution. This is the reason He charged them to be faithful (Luk 12:41-48).

"In Luk 12:49 to Luk 14:24, Jesus is calling on his audience to note the nature of the time-a time when God is making divisions among people, a time when people should be able to see what God is doing through Jesus, and a time when Israel had better respond before becoming nationally culpable for rejecting God’s messenger." [Note: Bock, Luke, p. 363.]

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

Division over Jesus 12:49-53 (cf. Matthew 10:34-36)

Jesus addressed these words to His disciples primarily (cf. Luk 12:41-42).

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

In view of the context Jesus’ reference to fire must be as a symbol of judgment primarily rather than purification, its other common signification in Scripture. He had just spoken of judging unfaithful disciples (Luk 12:45-48). Now He explained that one of the purposes of His incarnation was to bring judgment to the earth (cf. Luk 3:16). Perhaps Jesus wished this aspect of His ministry was taking place already because it would result in the purification of His people and would usher in the kingdom. However before Jesus’ judging ministry could begin, Jesus Himself would have to undergo judgment, which He pictured as baptism. It would overwhelm Him, but only temporarily. He would rise from it as a person experiencing water baptism rises out of the water. The prospect of His baptism (i.e., the Cross) distressed Him because it involved bearing God’s wrath for the sins of humankind.

John wrote that God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world (Joh 3:17). He meant at His first coming. When Jesus returns at His second coming He will exercise judgment.

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