Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadLange Commentary - Luke 13:22 - 13:30
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Luk_13:23. Then said one.—Time and place are not particularly stated. Even the matter of the question would not give us any right to pass a less favorable judgment upon the inquirer, if the Saviour’s answer did not of itself induce the conjecture that the man hitherto had not been rightly in earnest to procure his own salvation. In any case he was only an external follower of Jesus, Luk_13:24, who did not suppose that there could be any ground for him to be seriously concerned about the deliverance of his own soul. Apparently the question had been elicited by what he had, either himself or from others, come to know of the lofty strictness of the requirements of Jesus, to which, however, only few gave ear.
Are there few that be saved?—Respecting the peculiar significance of åἰ in such questions see Meyer, ad loc. “Dubitanter interrogat, ita ut interrogatio videatur directa esse.” Saved by reception into the Messianic kingdom under the conditions fixed therefor.
Luk_13:24. Strive, ἀãùíßæåóèå , “Certate.”—From the way in which the Saviour answers, it sufficiently appears how He judges the question and the questioner. It appears from this that the man had not asked this question from inward interest, nor even from compassion upon so many who might perhaps be lost, and least of all out of concern for the salvation of his own soul. It had rather been a question from pure curiosity, which was joined with frivolity and pride. Without giving a distinct decision, the Saviour brings the question immediately from the sphere of abstract theory to that of pure Praxis, and does not even address His words to the questioner alone, with whom He does not further converse, but to all who were to-day listening to Him. That, however, the Saviour’s instruction contains an answer—it is true indirect, but yet satisfactory and powerful—to the question addressed Him, strikes us at once on comparing the two, and we cannot, therefore, find any ground for the conjecture that such questions are only employed by Luke, as well here as in Luk_12:41, as elsewhere, in order to continue the discourse (De Wette). On the other hand, precisely such traits appear to us to bear the stamp of life and movement, freshness and simplicity. We may with safety assume that the questioner was more or less surprised at the small number of the followers of Jesus, but quite as certainly did he hold himself assured, above many, of the inheritance of eternal life, according to the popular faith of the Jews: “Omni Israelitœ erti portio in mundo futuro.” See Lightfoot, ad loc.
The narrow door.—Comp. Lange on Mat_7:13. We can find nothing improbable in supposing that the Saviour used so simple and speaking an image in His public instructions more than once, and the less as it is here brought up in a peculiar way.
Many shall seek.—We have doubtless here to understand such a seeking as does not yet deserve the name ἀãùíßæåóèáé ,—a seeking, therefore, without true earnestness, and without the firm purpose to obtain entrance at any price. Even when one knows more than a superficial longing to be saved, he often seeks its satisfaction in his own way, and therefore misses the true goal. It is worthy of notice that those who are here represented as æçôÞóïíôåò desire it is true the entrance, but not definitely äéὰ ôῆò óôåíῆí èýñáò . One may do much for his own salvation, and without success, if he omits the one thing that is needful.
Shall not be able.—Understand principally the moral impossibility of entering into God’s kingdom in another way than that of the narrow gate (= ìåôÜíïéá ). When this shall come to light the Saviour shows, Luk_13:25-27.
Luk_13:25. When (namely).—The Luk_13:25-27 contain two examples of fruitless and vain seeking to enter. First, they knock, and call, but too late; then, Luk_13:27, they appeal, but without reason, to their acquaintance with the master of the house. The similitude is not borrowed from a wedding to which single guests come too late (Mat_25:10-12), but from a family whose head has waited as long as possible for a return of the members of the family wandering about outside; who now, when the time of waiting has expired, inexorably refuses to admit them. Observe the striking climax: first, standing some time without, then knocking, then calling, finally reminding of former acquaintance, but all in vain.
I know ye not whence ye are.—With these words the Lord in the most decided way denies that they, let them be otherwise what they would, are members of His family. This declaration is immediately after repeated, yet with still greater emphasis, which sufficiently shows that the judgment is inexorable, and that a stern ἀðüóôçôå follows it. “How can He call them workers of iniquity if He is so wholly ignorant of them? For this very reason: because they outwardly stood so very near to Him, and have become inwardly so very strange to Him; have become, in the figurative sense, barbarians, whose origin is so wholly from a remote distance, so deeply back in the darkness, that the Lord of worlds, so to say, cannot know their descent; and because they, by the fact that they have for the Saviour of the world so darkened their being, betray that they must have come by great evil deeds to this terrible self-marring.” Lange.
Luk_13:26. We have eaten and drunk.—See on Mat_7:22. Here we are especially to emphasize the fact that it is an eating and drinking before the Lord ( ἐíþðéïí ) that is spoken of, without inward communion with Him; while what follows, “in our streets,” is meant to signify that He had previously, at all events, known them well, and that it was almost impossible that they should now be so entirely strange to Him. The attempt to bring the apparently so forgetful master of the house in this way to recollection is taken from the very life. The reminder of His teaching and preaching on the streets indicates at the same time that it is no one else that is here spoken of than the very Christ who appeared in the flesh.
Luk_13:28. There shall be.—In a certain sense a third ἄñîåóèå , and that the most terrible of all. The expelled are now represented as those who find themselves in the midst of night (hell), but at this remove are yet witnesses of the joy which awaits the members of the family. As participants of this joy the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament come here into the foreground, the spiritual ancestors of the same children who now, through their own fault, have become so wretched. The Marcionitic reading, ðÜíôáò ôïὺò äéêáßïõò , designedly withdraws from the representation this Israelitish element which the connection necessarily requires, and is, therefore, on this internal ground to be rejected (against Volkmar).
Luk_13:29. And they shall come.—See on Mat_8:11-12.—It is worthy of note that here the mention of the ðïëëïß is omitted, which we find in the parallel passage. For the Saviour would, by the repetition of this word, even here, have given a decided answer to the question (Luk_13:23), which, however, was not in His intention, and was in conflict with His wisdom in teaching. Yet, from the image of a company at table, we may perhaps infer that we are not to understand individuals only. As respects, moreover, the significance of the judgment here passed by the Saviour, we must undoubtedly concede that by it, according to the connection, not eternal damnation, but the temporal exclusion of the Jews from the blessings of the Messianic kingdom is meant (Stier), while on the other hand nothing hinders, us either from referring the here-applied Biblical method of speech in its whole force to the eternal fate of those who persevere in unbelief and impenitence even to the end.
Luk_13:30. There are last.—“Respecting the originality of these gnomes, uttered in various places and in different connections, we cannot in any one passage decide.” Meyer. The sense is, however, in the different passages, different. Mat_19:30 the ðñῶôïé are it is true ἔó÷áôïé , but not for that entirely excluded from the kingdom of God; here they decidedly are. There it is only a putting back, here it is an entire rejection, that takes place. There the Saviour had in mind servants craving reward, here unbelieving rejectors of Himself. Besides, He here speaks (without article) in a wholly general manner of some ðñῶôïé and of some ἔó÷áôïé , and thereby leads the questioner (Luk_13:22) back into his own heart, that he may maturely weigh on which side he stands.
What impression this whole instruction of the Saviour made upon this unnamed man the Scripture does not mention. Apparently it was too superficial to enable him to fathom in its whole fulness the deep sense of the word—the decided announcement of the rejection of Israel. It, however, remains remarkable, and also serves as a proof that these chapters in Luke have reference to the last period in the public life of our Lord, that it is precisely here and in the three parables of the following chapter, that this thought of the calling of the Last before the unthankful First, comes so strongly into the foreground. It is shown in this that the fruitless labor of Jesus on the house of Israel is now soon to come to an end.
2. As upon the nature of this kingdom, so is there here thrown upon the character of its King a bright light. On the one hand we are seized with a sense of His holy severity; on the other, of His love stooping to the dust. But above all we admire His incomparable wisdom in teaching, by which He knows how to bring back the questioner from the unfruitful domain of speculation to that of Praxis. In this view the Saviour is a never-equalled example, especially for spiritual converse with such members of the Church as direct their eye rather to the dark than to the bright side of the Gospel; who subtilize upon the âÜèç ôïῦ Èåïῦ ; who would rather dispute about predestination than listen to the personal requirements of faith and conversion; in a word, who continually are beginning, where on the other hand they ought to stand still and conclude. Comp. Deu_29:29. Unnecessary questions the Gospel answers only to a certain degree; but to the one thing that is needful the answer is to be read, Act_16:30-31.
3. Here also, as in Luk_13:34-35, the Saviour gives for the failure of so many to be saved, an ethical, no metaphysical ground. He considers the matter entirely from the anthropological side. Very especially is this method a fitting and profitable one for popular instruction.
4. What the Saviour here says in relation to the rejection of Israel must be complemented from that which His apostle teaches respecting this (Rom_11:25-26); the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. What, however, gives to this instruction the highest significance for all following times and races, is the earnest declaration that no outer participation in the blessings of the Messianic kingdom can give claim to future blessedness, unless one has really taken in earnest the requirement of ìåôÜíïéá .
5. The inexorable sternness with which the householder, even after the repeated calling and begging, unconditionally refuses entrance, contrasts remarkably with the great laxity with which many preachers and theologians continually bring forward the ἀðïêáôÜóôáóéò ðÜíôùí as an infallible expectation. Without the solemn conception of an “everlastingly too late,” the preaching of the Gospel is robbed of its most salutary salt.
6. Even if we do not venture with Bengel to maintain that in the order of the four regions of Heaven (East, West, North, South), the course of the history of missions, which began in the Orient, and now stand in the South, is given, yet unquestionably the here-uttered principle: “There are last,” &c., has its great significance, even for Christian mission labor. Many nations that might be called first, compared with other participants of the faith, and heirs of the kingdom, have retrograded, because they have become sluggish and cold. Others, who were originally poor, unknown, and in the background, come forward in the ranks of Christian nations with honor. And what is here said of first and last has found its literal fulfilment in Israel and the heathen world. Christian Europe may well pray that this may not become true in respect of itself, and that the rain of the Spirit which bedews America and the remote heathen lands, may not continue withheld from its own soil.
Starke:—It is indeed of moment to know the character of those who are saved, but not the number of the saved.—Canstein:—Men have indeed the desire for future blessedness, but it is the smallest number who value it so highly that for it they are willing to give up the present and visible.—Quesnel:—God has His hours, which man must not let slip by in vain.—Zeisius:—Late repentance seldom true repentance.—Osiander:—Hypocrites are before God, with all their outward holiness, but workers of iniquity.—Brentius:—Who here in the kingdom of grace will not be a citizen, and member of God’s family, cannot be such in the kingdom of glory; one has relation to the other.—They who are farthest from the kingdom of God often receive it most eagerly.—Lord, everlasting thanks to Thee that Thou hast also called the heathen!—Canstein:—God has at all times the Church on earth; He is not bound to any nation.—Boast not of thy prerogatives above others; it may before evening turn out otherwise than it was at early morning.—Heubner:—There was here a question of curiosity. Many such there are; so was also the question concerning the salvation of the heathen, and concerning evil angels, among theologians, often more a curious one than otherwise.—The idle expectations of those who imagine themselves to have a right to salvation.—Not rank or nation, or the like, makes worthy of salvation, but doing according to Jesus’ will.
Footnotes:
Luk_13:24.— Èýñáò , according to B., D., L., [Cod. Sin., T.] The Rec. ðýëçò is taken from Mat_7:13.