Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 8:25
And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.
25. What manner of man ] Rather, Who, then. The ara expresses the same surprise and emotion conveyed by the potapos, ‘what kind of Being,’ of St Matthew. Psa 107:23-30.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Luk 8:25
Where Is your faith?
Where is your faith?
It is as much as if He had said, You thought that I was sleeping. But was it indeed only Me, or chiefly My eye, that slept? Was it not your faith.? You say, Where is the Lord? but I say, Where is your faith? It is a mistake, brethren, we are all making every day. We say,–The Lord sleeps–the Lord sleeps. But what is it,–Your faithsleeps. I begin by asking every one I am now addressing, Where is your faith? Where is your faith? Now tell me, is it in the First Great Source? or, is it in second causes?
1. It is astonishing how many men are putting their faith upon second causes! I can imagine the fisherman in the storm, looking at the wind and the gathering clouds, partly because they come with less trouble; partly from long habit; partly from the aversion which there is in the mind of men to every thing spiritual; but chiefly because men imagine they have no right to go up straight to God. Hence almost all men are found trying means as if they were ends; and Gods instruments as if they were gods. For instance, one man has a friend, and he hangs upon that friend, and you may see him behaving to that friend as if he considered that friend the arbiter of his life. Another is a man in business, and his study is about nothing every day but his connection, and it is plain that he looks to nothing but his connection to determine his rise or his ruin in the enterprise in which he is embarked. A third man is a farmer, and you will hear him talking about the weather, as if the crops had no other father but the sun and the rain. A fourth is a politician, and he makes the world turn–as upon a pivot–on the consideration whether this administration shall be in, or that. All are making their system of cause and effect; and they do not calculate upon the shadow of a doubt that if there is a prescribed cause, there must be the predicted event. Their whole hearts–their whole faith is in second cause. Now, brethren, we do not hesitate to arraign this trusting in second cause as sheer idolatry. It is the essential of God that He is final, and what is final is made God.
2. But I will turn to another class of lifes voyagers, and say, again, Where is your faith? Is it not in yourselves? Perhaps the fishermen on the Galilean lake thought it very little for them to cross those oft-traversed waters, and would have laughed at the idea of there being any danger in their barque landing in safety on the other side. Yet how little booted their skill and their confidence! There are two distinct ways in which persons put faith in themselves. One is, in trusting there is a sufficient measure of goodness in their own hearts: the other, is by admitting their hearts are very bad, but still, taking a compensation in something that they are doing.
3. But I turn to the third class, and I ask again, Where is your faith? and a thousand voices will answer me almost in this church, Why, in God; but I reply, In what God? But you say, Oh, Him that is all mercy and all goodness. All! and all just! Is not God all just? would He be just if He forfeited His own word? And has not He said it, The soul that sinneth it shall die? Has not He said, Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish? Has He not said, He that believeth not shall be damned? Has not he made a particular requirement of you, that you must keep His whole law; and has He not made it as sure, as necessary a thing, that every sin shall lead on to misery, as every seed leads on to its own harvest? O, tell me, is it possible–in any view you may take of good government–that any breach of itslaws should pass unpunished? Is not the suffering of the offender part of the mercy–the centre of the mercy–of a grand administrator? Else, would not license, aye, and premium, too, be given to crime? and must not the whole empire pass into recklessness and misery? (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Where is your faith?
1. I believe in God. How lightly, how carelessly, we repeat those solemn words, and yet what a universe of meaning lies in them!
2. Do we believe? Do we at all know what belief means? Do we suppose it to mean, I am familiar with these formulae, I see no special reason for rejecting them. Thou believest that there is one God. Thou doest well. The devils also believe; nay more, they tremble.
3. I believe, but, while with orthodox self-satisfaction we repeat our creeds, on which soul has dawned the tremendous responsibility of our belief, the transcendent obligation of all that it entails?
4. What, then, is wanting? Faith is wanting–that faith which is a possessing principle, an irresistible enthusiasm. Real faith–not the ineffectual pretence; not the faith which makes idols of formulae; not the faith which delights in rigid systems and fantastic self-delusions, groping in mediaeval traditions for a dead and material and exclusive Christ. Had we but faith as a grain of mustard-seed we should remove the mountains which overshadow and threaten to fall on us. (Archdeacon Farrar.)
Fear rebuked
One day when Stonewall Jackson, with his sister-in-law, was crossing the boiling torrent, just below the American falls at Niagara, in a slight boat manned by two oarsmen, the current so swirled the boat that the lady became terrified, believing they were going to the bottom. Jackson seized her by the arms, and turned to one of the men and said, How often have you crossed here? I have been rowing people across, sir, for twelve years. Did you ever meet with an accident? Never, sir. Never were capsized? never lost a life? Nothing of the kind, sir! Then turning in a somewhat peremptory tone, he said to the lady, You hear what the boatman says, and unless you think you can take the oars and row better than he does, sit still and trust him as I do. (Mackay.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 25. Where is your faith?] Ye have a power to believe, and yet do not exercise it! Depend on God. Ye have little faith, (Mt 8:26), because you do not use the grace which I have already given you. Many are looking for more faith without using that which they have. It is as possible to hide this talent as any other.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
And he said unto them, where is your faith?…. That is, he said so to his disciples, who had professed faith in him, but now discovered very little:
and they being afraid, wondered; being filled with awful sense of his majesty, were amazed at his power and authority, in rebuking the wind and sea, which at once obeyed him, and were still:
saying one another; among themselves, privately:
what manner of man is this? for he commandeth even the winds and water; or the sea, as the Vulgate Latin. The Syriac version reads both, “the floods and the sea”;
and they obey him: according to Matthew, these words seem to be spoken by the men of the ship, the mariners; but here, according to Luke, they seem to be the words of the disciples;
[See comments on Mt 8:27] [See comments on Mr 4:41].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
He commandeth. Peculiar to Luke.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “And he said unto them, Where is your faith?” (eipen de autois pou he pistis humon) “Then he said to them, where is your faith?” It is a mild chiding or rebuke, Mar 4:40; Mat 8:26. They had some faith, but it was not ready at hand.
2) “And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another,” (phobethentes de ethaumasan legontes pros allelous) “Then fearing, they marvelled, repeatedly saying one to another,” or among themselves, Mar 4:41; Mat 8:27. Trial should develop, strengthen faith, not fear. The best in a child of God should show in times of storms and testings, 1Co 10:13.
3) “What manner of man is this!” (tis ara houtos estin) “Just who is this man,” or this kind of a man, Mar 4:41; Mat 14:33.
4) “For he commandeth even the winds and water,” (hot! kai tois anemois epistassei kai to hudati) “That he mandates, orders, or directs even the winds and the waters,” Mat 8:27; Psa 93:4.
5) “And they obey him,” (kai hupakousin) “And they heed, obey, or come under, to do what, he says,” Mar 4:41; They respect and obey Him as Lord or Master. How much more should His children, Job 38:11; Psa 65:7; Psa 89:9.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(25) What manner of man.Better, Who then is this?
And water.Better, and the water.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
‘And he said to them, “Where is your faith?” And being afraid they marvelled, saying one to another, “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?” ’
Jesus then turned to His disciples and asked, “Where is your faith?” Now under all normal circumstances that would be an unreasonable question. No man has a right to expect that God will protect him in all circumstances. It only becomes reasonable if we see that He is indicating that they should have known that as the Messiah He could not die until He had completed His work, and that as His chosen Apostles they too were safe, because God had chosen them and yet had a work for them all to do. He was awaking them to the fact that as yet they did not really appreciate the privilege that was theirs to such an extent that they were immortal until God withdrew His hand. Jesus had that confidence. They would need to have it too.
But they were amazed and filled with wonder. Never before had they seen anything like it, a man who could make the wind and waves obey Him and do His will. There is, however, no need to see Jesus as seeing the wind and waves as ‘quasi-personal’ (any more than God did in the Old Testament). It is simply a way of indicating that all Creation obeys His word and does His will. All of creation does His bidding.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Luk 8:25. Where is your faith? The disciples, having seen their Master perform many miracles, had abundant reason to rely on his power and goodness, even in a greater danger than this; for though their vessel had sunk, they could not have imagined that God would have suffered him to be lost; and might have been confident, that he who had given sight to the blind, and life to the dead, could have saved them all, by making them walk firmly on the water, as he enabled one of them to do afterwards. Their timidity therefore was altogether culpable, and the reproof that he gave them just. But their views of his supreme Godhead were at that time exceedingly dark. See the note on Mat 8:27.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
25 And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.
Ver. 25. Where is your faith? ] It is not having faith, but living by it, the actuating of it, that helps us in an exigence.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
25. ] In Matt. this reproof comes before the stilling of the storm. But our account, and that in Mark, are here evidently exact.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Luk 8:25 . , etc., where is your faith? a mild rebuke compared with Mt. and Mk. Note: Lk. ever spares the Twelve .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
What manner. This! = Who then is this [man]!
He commandeth. Peculiar to Luke.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
25.] In Matt. this reproof comes before the stilling of the storm. But our account, and that in Mark, are here evidently exact.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Luk 8:25. , where) There was some faith on their part, but it was not ready at hand in the emergency.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Where: Luk 12:28, Mat 6:30, Mat 8:26, Mat 14:31, Mat 17:20, Mar 4:40, Mar 4:41, Joh 11:40
being: Gen 1:9, Gen 1:10, Jos 10:12-14, Job 38:8-10, Pro 8:29, Pro 30:4
Reciprocal: Psa 29:4 – powerful Mar 6:51 – and the Luk 9:41 – O faithless Luk 9:43 – amazed
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
FAITH AND ITS EVIDENCES
Where is your faith?
Luk 8:25
Faith is not a mere sluggish acceptance, a mere condescending acquiescence, a mere dead passivity; it is not even a mere abstract conviction. Faith, in the Christian sense, in the sense wherein each one of us ought to say I believe, is a possessing principle, an irresistible enthusiasm.
Men in myriads say that they believe in God. When men are sincere in the belief, it is easy to show it. Such faith is not dead or nugatory, but all-pervading; not a secondary matter, but everything; and when perfectly sincere it will bend the whole purpose of the man to love Gods law, to do His will, to glorify His name. He who really believes in God will be:
I.Watchful, because he knows Gods eye is upon him.
II.Trustful, for God is his Father.
III.Grateful, for Christ died to redeem him.
IV.Hopeful, for there is a hand that guides.
V.Self-sacrificing, for Christ bade us take up our cross.
VI.Contented with food and raiment, for Christ was poor.
VII.Holy, for He Who hath called us is holy.
We say that we believe in God. Are we sincere? If so, what are the proofs of our sincerity?
Dean Farrar.
Illustration
I believe in God, in Christ, in the Holy Ghost. That belief, if we really had itthat is, if it were genuine faithis strong enough to drive away vice and infidelity wholly from the world. I believe in one God. Why, even Mahomet said it, and meant it. With a handful of desert Arabs he burst over continents in a storm of conquests. I believe in Christ. Why, when a dozen Galilean peasants, unlearned and ignorant men, said it and meant it, before their emblem of a slaves torture kings fell prostrate and armies fell. I believe in the Holy Ghost. Why, when the poor monk said it at Worms and at Wittemberg she whose scarlet robe was stiff with earthly pomp, whose names were many and all blasphemous, the harlot of sacerdotal tyranny and ecclesiastical corruption, reeled upon the throne of her abominations. I believe in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We say it, and from our feeble and stammering lips the words with which our fathers worked miracles fall dead. We say it, and on every side of us men are turning their backs contemptuously upon our services and are loathing our divisions and are laughing our hollow faith to scorn.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
5
They had heard him command intelligent creatures such as the demons, but were astonished to see him control things that have no consciousness.