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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
(Luk_6:39-49)
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Can the blind.—If one is inclined to insist upon some connection between the four parables here following and what precedes, it would be best to settle it as follows: “The disciples might, after these words of the Lord, think in their hearts: It is not easy to be a Christian! They were called to show to the world by their preaching and by their walk the way which the Lord showed them: therefore this above all was needful, that they themselves should allow the light to penetrate themselves, and should establish themselves upon the right and only ground. To this now does the Lord admonish them.” (Besser.)
Ôõöëüò .—Whoever himself is blind for the light of truth cannot possibly serve another as leader, but draws him with him into destruction which reaches its fearful culmination in Gehenna. This was plainly manifest by the example of the Pharisees, comp. Mat_15:14, from which the disciples could see what leaders they should not be. Although all men by nature are spiritually blind, the judgment here pronounced is perfectly righteous, since the blindness of the leaders of the blind to the light of the Lord is a self-caused one.
Luk_6:40. Ïὐê ἔóôéí ìáèçôÞò .—If the Sermon on the Mount in Luke consists in part of a collection of different sayings of the Saviour apart from their original historical connection, it is then indeed superfluous to inquire after the connection of the preceding saying with this. Yet Luk_6:40 may serve to illustrate the naturalness and justness of the judgment pronounced in Luk_6:39. In this way, namely: only if a disciple surpassed his master could he hope to be preserved from the ditch into which he sees his blind leader fall. Since, however, the disciple does not commonly surpass the master, he has also the same danger to fear. As a rule every one is constituted like his master.—We must not over-look the fact that here at the same time an indirect intimation is given to the Twelve to fashion themselves in all things after the character of their new Master.
Luk_6:41. And why beholdest thou.—Comp. Mat_7:3. Not merely “a climax upon the preceding” (Gerlach), but a pointing out of the way to be kept from the character and fate of the blind leader of the blind. Self-knowledge and amendment is required of the disciples of the Lord before they judge the failings of others and offer themselves to them as leaders.
ÊÜñöïò .—“That He may warn us the more diligently He finds a palpable comparison and paints it before our eyes,—gives such a sentence as this, that every one who judges his neighbor has a great beam in his eye, while he who is judged has only a little splinter, so that he is ten times more worthy of judgment and condemnation even in this, that he condemns others.” (Luther.) As to the rest, moral defects, as well as those of knowledge, appear to be spoken of here, such as the Saviour relatively likens to a little splinter. The äïêüò can then be nothing else than just that foolish imagination of a greater excellence compared with our faulty brother: therefore the man with the äïêüò is immediately called ὑðïêñéôÜ because he demeans himself as if free of faults.
ÄéáâëÝøåéò .—The composite, perhaps chosen (“intenta acie spectabis.” Meyer) in order to place in a strong light the difficulty and delicacy of the work, in which the greatest carefulness is necessary. How surely every one has first to look to himself appears particularly from the following parable.
Luk_6:43. Ïὐ ãÜñ .—First of all this parabolic saying is connected with what immediately precedes, “If thou dost not see the beam in thine own eye thou wouldst be like the corrupt tree, which cannot possibly bring forth good fruit.” So Bengel: qui sua trabe laborans alienam festucam petit est similis arbori malœ bonum fructum affectanti. Yet, since the Sermon on the Mount is hastening to its end, we may at the same time refer this word back to all the preceding requirements, the fulfilment of which is specially dependent on the condition of the heart.
A good tree.—Comp. Mat_7:15-20, and Lange on the passage. The fruits can here be nothing else than works. That the Saviour is here particularly thinking of misleading spirits in the Christian Church we do not believe, although we willingly concede that His saying may also be applied to these: as the sign of such it is not the walk, but the doctrine, that is given. In a striking way did the misleaders of the people who shortly after His appearance stirred up the unhappy Jews show the truth of this His utterance. They knew how with brilliant promises to allure great throngs to their side, but their behavior was so entirely in conflict with the essential principles of religion and of the state, that by this alone they could not but forfeit all confidence. The credulous multitude who gave credence to their words learned too late what evil fruits these trees of abundant promise brought forth.
Luk_6:45. The good man.—Comp. Mat_12:35. Probably no part of the original Sermon on the Mount, but communicated out of its historical connection by Luke. The Saviour regards no man as naturally good in the Pelagian sense of the word, but speaks of the sinner who has become good through grace. Both the good and the evil man He sets forth as they commonly reveal themselves outwardly, without however denying that even the good has his weak and the evil man his better side. The heart of the one and of the other is the magazine ( èçóáõñüò ), out of which perpetually proceeds what therein was in no small measure hidden.—For out of the abundance, comp. Psa_36:2.
Luk_6:46. And why call ye Me.—This same dictum is communicated in a complete form, Mat_7:21, with reference to the Pharisaic pretended holiness. Yet it is also applicable to the disciples of the Lord so far as in their disposition remnants of the old leaven are still found. It is only possible for the greatest misunderstanding, the most perverted apprehension of the ïὐ ðᾶò ὁ ëÝã . in Matthew to find here a ground for declaring the external confession of the Saviour to be wholly indifferent. (Kant.) Comp. Mat_10:32-33. In the connection in which Luke reports this saying of the Saviour, it constitutes of itself the transition to the concluding parable, which he has in common with Matthew. Before any one comprehends the requirements of the ðïéåῖí in an anti-evangelical sense, let him consider what the Saviour himself demands as the essence of the ἔñãïí ôïῦ èåïῦ , Joh_6:29.
Luk_6:47. Ðᾶò ὁ ἐñ÷üìåíïò , ê . ô . ë .—A commencement of the concluding parable peculiar to Luke, in a more lively form than in Matthew. The whole conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount shows sharply, from word to word, a striking climax. Very vivid is the representation of the man who not only begins to build but also incessantly digs deeper ( ἐâÜèõíå ), and does not rest before he reaches the firm rock ( ἐðὶ ôὴí ðÝôñáí ). That this is done in Palestine even now by solid builders is stated by Robinson, Biblical Researches, vol. iii. The rock can here hardly be primarily the person of Christ, as in 1Co_10:4, but is primarily the word, wherein however He Himself is. Who builds thereupon the house of his hope builds secure; whoever out of Him seeks firmness and security proceeds towards certain destruction. The work of both builders becomes plain by the test. Comp. 1Co_3:11-15.
Luk_6:48. A flood.—De Wette: “an inundation.” Comp. Job_40:23, LXX.—Symbol of all possible tests which the edifice of faith and hope can have to undergo in hours of doubt, of temptation, and of danger of death. Then is true for the disciple of the Lord the word—Pro_12:7. The antithesis is so much the more striking as He does not here oppose the morally good to the morally bad, but simply the careful to the heedless.
For it was well built.—“For it was founded upon a rock.”—The steadfastness of the building does not lie in what is built, but in the foundation on which it is built.—Comp. Eze_13:11.
Luk_6:49. Without a foundation.— ἐðὶ ôὴí ἄììïí , Matthew. All that is not ðÝôñá remains ἄììïò , even if it were outwardly like a rock.—The breach, in Matthew the fall, the one is consequence of the other. In both redactions the Sermon on the Mount ends as it were in a storm of wind, earthquake, and fire, 1Ki_19:11-12. The supposition that a rising tempest or rain hastened the end of the discourse and placed on the lips of the Saviour this last word is ingeniose magis quam vere. Now and then without doubt the Saviour has found occasion from the nature surrounding Him to the choice of His figurative language, e.g., Joh_3:8; Joh_15:1. But did He also in Mat_15:14, or in Joh_16:21?—Credat Judœus Apella.
2. Without the word ìåôÜíïéá being mentioned, the last part of the Sermon on the Mount also contains a most obvious intimation of the indispensable necessity of the new birth. The blind who leads the blind into destruction; the hypocrite who overlooks his own faults compared with those of his brother; the corrupt tree which in its present condition cannot possibly bring forth good fruit; the fool who builds his house upon the sand—all give us to recognize in various forms the image of the natural man in his delusion and pride, in his ruinous fall and destruction. In vain is it to will to do good so long as one has not become good, and good can no one make himself without Christ. Comp. Jer_13:23. Thus does the Lord repeat here in a practical popular form essentially the same thoughts which He in John 3 has expressed before Nicodemus. On the other hand He states the one infallible sign of the genuineness of the great change which takes place in the heart of His true disciples: the joyful doing of His will.
3. When we observe how the Saviour in this part of the Sermon on the Mount also insists especially upon an active Christianity, it is almost incomprehensible how, in the course of the centuries, and even to-day, so much Antinomism could show itself in the Church. For, according to His intimations also, His disciple can and will be blessed alone ἐí ôῇ ðïéÞóåé áὐôïῦ . Comp. Jam_1:25. Never can the vindicator of a lax and shallow morality appeal to His words so long as He has not rent the Sermon on the Mount out of the Gospel. Yet, alas, to many an antinomistic theory is the profound saying of Gregory of Nazianzen applicable: ðñᾶîéò ἐðßâáóéò èåùñßáò .
4. If we apply the saying: “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh,” to the Saviour Himself, how deep a look do we then obtain through the clear current of His preaching on the Mount into the golden recesses of his Divinely human heart! The less He says unequivocally in the Sermon on the Mount, who He is, the more clearly does it show itself.
5. Not unjustly has the conclusion been drawn from this part of the Sermon on the Mount, how much easier it is to take note of others than of ourselves; how much more convenient to show a brother the way than to walk therein ourselves; how great the danger of ourselves being found reprobates while we work for the salvation of others. Comp. 1Co_9:27. Perhaps it was similar considerations which in the end of the last century gave occasion to the singular question, “Whether it is a miracle when a clergyman is saved?” (Bretschneider, † 1792.)
6. The concluding parable of the Sermon on the Mount unites in itself allegory and prophecy in the most beautiful manner. In three verses there is here compressed the primeval, and yet ever fresh, history of all that which has been built, is building, and until the end of all days shall be built; on the one hand without, on the other hand in and upon, the word and the Spirit of the Lord. The ìåãÜëç ðôῶóéò of the house built upon the sand, was, among other instances, heard at the fall of unbelieving Judaism, as well as at that of all unbelieving philosophical systems which have overlived themselves, and at that of every state, of every church which is not built upon the only true foundation; and all this will repeat itself in continually greater measure, the nearer the last crisis of the future approaches, until the word is wholly fulfilled: 1Jn_2:17.
Starke:—In the choice of a leader, whether temporal or spiritual, all foresight and prudence is to be used; the danger is great, the mischief often irreparable, of hasty choice.—From the ignorance of pastors rises adulteration of the true service of God, superstitious sermons, abuses, and numerous disorders. 2Ti_3:13.—The least splinter can destroy the whole eye; slight seeming sins also are ruinous and damnable. Son_2:15; 2Sa_6:6-7.—Quesnel:—Whoever diligently proves himself, will not easily chastise others. Sir_23:2.—True self-knowledge the beginning of our own amendment, and the way to edify our neighbor.—The wisdom from above makes humble and compassionate, but earthly wisdom presumptuous and unmerciful men.—Self-complacence corrupts all good.—Osiander:—He is no pious man, out of whose mouth poisonous calumnies are heard. Psa_15:2-3.—Quesnel:—The fruits of a carnal or of a spiritual heart are the works of the flesh or of the Spirit. Gal_5:16 seq.—Bibl. Wirt.:—The evil heart of man becomes then good when Christ the fruitful olive tree is, by faith, planted in the same. Act_15:9.—He is only a mocker that calls God his Lord, yet obeys not His commandments. Mal_1:6.—To know and do the Lord’s will, manifests a faithful servant. Luk_12:47-48.—Osiander:—Believers are in all storms of temptation preserved to eternal life. Isa_32:2; Isa_33:16.—Ye teachers, ye hearers, ye parents, ye children, think on a right laying of foundations in religion, that in the hour of temptation and distress ye may not find yourselves deceived.
Heubner:—The disposition to give a verdict against others, the fruit of a false eagerness to quiet one’s self.—The Christian must be severe against himself, mild-judging towards others.—The culture of grace first fashions a man into something noble.—The inward disposition in man, what the sap is in a tree.—What a destruction shall come upon apostate teachers!—Couard (on Luk_6:46):—The confessing of Jesus Christ in Christendom. It comes to pass that 1. With many the confessing of Christ is wholly wanting (they deny the Lord); 2. with many this confession is the thoughtless language of custom (they are Christian in name); 3. with some only an assumed pretence of godliness (hypocrites); 4. with others a matter of the heart and expression of living faith (true Christians).—Jaspis:—Hypocrisy in religion: 1. How easily it creeps over us; 2. how quickly it grows; 3. how slowly it cures; 4. how deep it casts us down.—Hopfner:—Four things of principal concern in Christianity: 1. Faith makes the Christian; 2. the life shows the Christian; 3. suffering proves the Christian; 4. dying crowns the Christian.—Krummacher:—Who shall enter into the kingdom of heaven? (on Luk_6:46. Comp. Mat_7:21-23.) From this saying appears the threefold necessity: 1. Of saying “Lord! Lord!” 2. of the new birth through the Holy Spirit; 3. of incorporation into the despised ecclesiola in ecclesia.—Claus Harms (on the Pericope Mat_7:15-22):—Deeper Christian truths in the text read. They respect: 1. The teachers, especially the false; 2. the conditions of our salvation, the rule and the exception; 3. the future decision, when and by whom, and according to what it is made.
“Let not him who is established and built upon the rock, imagine that he can now be no more overtaken by all manner of affliction or danger. Rather is he like a house that is situated on the shore of the sea, upon which the waves beat heavier than is known to houses inland. This house must be the target and mark of all the beating storms of the world. But because it is founded on the rock, it may indeed be shaken to the centre, and its rafters creak, yet fall shall it never, for its foundation stands fast and unmovable.” Chemnitz.