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Luk_9:18-50
a. The Journey To The Transfiguration (Luk_9:18-27)
(Luk_9:18-21, parallel to Gospel for Sts. Peter and Paul’s Day; Mat_16:13-20.)
As He was alone praying.—According to Matthew and Mark the Saviour was now in the region of Cæsarea Philippi. (See, respecting this place, Lange on Mat_16:13.) Here also, as we have several times remarked, Luke brings into view the praying of the Saviour. Justly does Bengel say: “Jesus Patrem rogarat, ut discipulis se revelaret. Nam argumentum precum Jesu colligi potest ex sermonibus actionibusque insecutis.” Comp. Luk_6:12-13. Apparently we must understand the matter thus—that the disciples had found the Saviour praying in solitude, as in Luk_11:1, while from Luk_9:23 it appears to be the case that besides the Twelve, other listeners had soon approached, so that He, in a few moments, found a wider circle, gathered around Him to which He could address His words.
And He asked them.—From the preceding prayer we must conclude that the Saviour Himself considered the conversation now following as in the highest degree momentous, and this will not surprise us if we only transport ourselves into His circumstances during this period of time. The more unequivocally He had lately experienced the irreconcilable enmity of His adversaries, the more clearly did the end of His course, now drawing nearer, rise before His soul. The time had now come when He must speak more openly than hitherto to His disciples of His approaching suffering and death. The prayer which the Saviour offered afterwards for Simon, Luk_22:32, can hardly have been excluded here. But before He now grants to the Twelve a deeper view into the nature of His work, He will convince Himself of their manner of thought respecting His Person and His character.
Who say the people that I am?—He wishes to know for what the [common] people, this interpreter of public opinion, took Him, Him who commonly designated Himself by the somewhat mysterious name of the Son of Man. Other views see in Lange, ad loc. The inquiry after the views of men, in which one only heard the voice of flesh and blood, might justly surprise us if we forgot that it only constituted the transition to a far more momentous one.
Luk_9:19. John the Baptist.—The opinions are different, yet fully explicable. That John the Baptist had risen, was perhaps an echo of that which was talked of at Herod’s court, perhaps also an inference drawn by high esteem, to which it appeared impossible that such a man of God should have been actually and forever taken away from the world.—Elijah.—Comp. Mal_4:5.—One of the old prophets.—Men believed, from Mic_5:6 and other passages, that they were warranted to conclude that at the time of the Messiah different prophets would again appear. (See Lightfoot on Joh_1:21.) In brief, for something ordinary and insignificant no one took the Nazarene: a messenger of God they could not fail to recognize in Him; perhaps He was the Forerunner. For the Messiah public opinion did not now take Him to be. It was divided, and moreover had not in the main become more favorable to the Saviour. If there had formerly existed among the people a disposition to believe in His Messianic dignity, now there is no more talk of this. After the great schism, Joh_6:66 seq., the sun of popular favor is set. Carefully considered, therefore, the popular voice is now no longer a homage, but only a denying of the Lord.
Luk_9:20. But who say ye that I am?—Plainly the emphasis falls upon ὑìåῖò , in opposition to the ὄ÷ëïé . First the Lord will hear the echo of the people’s views; He will hear now His powerful witnesses’ own voice, the expression of their living, personal, and independent faith. It appears how highly the Lord esteemed the confession of faith of His disciples, and how He is the farthest possible from reckoning their Christology among the Adiaphora.
The Christ of God.—The complete form of the answer, see Mat_16:16. It is wholly impossible to prove that it was only the theocratical and not the supernatural dignity of the Saviour which here hovered before the mind of Peter. If before this even rough shipmen had recognized something superhuman in Jesus, Mat_14:33, the Saviour would certainly not have pronounced His disciple blessed for his confession, had this side of His being yet remained wholly hidden to him, although, of course, it is evident that this faith of the heart in Peter had not for that as yet become in his mind a fully rounded dogma. As to the rest, we must very decidedly declare ourselves against the view that takes this confession of Peter for the same which is related Joh_6:69 (Wieseler, Rau). This last is much less decided and powerful, at least according to the true reading in Tischendorf. Besides, the two are in their historical connection heaven-wide apart, and the two confessions cannot be identified without most arbitrarily accusing John of inaccuracy.
Luk_9:21. To tell no man.—The more detailed answer of the Saviour, and His praise bestowed upon Peter, see Mat_16:17-19. Comp. Lange, ad loc. That the Saviour was almost, as it were, “terrified” at the confession of Peter (Fritzsche, Schneckenburger, Strauss), is as little implied in the letter as in the spirit of the narrative. As to the ground on which especially He commanded silence, this is at once evident. For the first time it has now become manifest that His self-consciousness agrees in substance with the confession of faith of the Twelve. He Himself has impressed upon the language of faith the seal of His attestation, and therefore, in fact, from this moment there already existed a little congregation in which the faith on Jesus as the Christ was the centre of union. If this community, with its manner of thinking, manifested itself externally, it would here have found premature adherents, and there have roused renewed opposition. Therefore the Saviour will have them keep silence respecting His person so long as His high priestly work was not yet accomplished, but at the same time now declares His apostles capable of receiving more particular instructions respecting the nature of this work.
Luk_9:22. The Son of Man must suffer many things.—In antithesis to the figurative and covert allusions to His approaching death, which they had already heard, comp. Mat_9:15; Joh_2:19; Joh_4:37-38, the Saviour now begins to speak in a literal manner. He makes known, 1. who the accomplishers of this suffering shall be, 2. in what form it is to be prepared for Him, 3. the necessity of this suffering, 4. the issue of this suffering, namely, His resurrection. The view (De Wette, a. o.) that the last is here added only ex eventu, is with right denied and refuted by Lange, Gospel of Matthew, p. 302. The offence taken by Peter at this word and the rebuke suffered by him are related only by Matthew and Mark.
Luk_9:23. If any man will come after Me.—Here, as in Joh_6:67, the Lord gives His apostles the choice whether they will follow Him even now, when the way goes for a time into the depth. If they do it, they shall know beforehand what it will cost them. Whoever follows Him, let him take up his cross daily, a symbol of self-denial which the Saviour would certainly not have adopted by preference if He had not Himself, even already in the distance, beheld this instrument of His own pain and ignominy. There exists no ground for declaring the remarkable êáè ̓ ἡìÝñáí , which Luke alone has, an interpolation a seriore manu. From Jesus Himself does it proceed, and places the extent and the difficulty of this requirement of self-denial in the clearest light. Worthy of notice is it that it is no other than Peter who afterwards so deeply apprehended and so powerfully reëchoed this requirement. (See 1Pe_4:1-3; and comp. Romans 6; Col_3:1-4, &c.)
Luk_9:24. Whosoever will save his life.—In order to make evident the indispensable necessity of self-denial, the Saviour uses a double motive. The first is taken from the present, Luk_9:24-26, the other from the future, Luk_9:27. Only by self-denial, He says, can a man become partaker even here of the higher life of the Spirit, so that he has therefore the choice between temporary gain and eternal loss. Here also is a proof of the higher unity between the Synoptical and the Johannean Christ. Comp. Joh_12:25. The life, which the man will commonly preserve at any price, is the natural, selfish life, whose centre is the øõ÷Þ , considered out of its relation to the ðíåῦìá . Whoever will preserve this life, and therefore walk in accordance with his natural inclinations, may reckon upon it that he loses his true, his proper life: but those who, for the sake of Christ and His cause, set at stake the possession of life and the enjoyment of life in the common sense of the word, will through this very temporary perishing become partakers in perpetually richer measure of the true and higher life of the Spirit. A word of infinitely deep significance for the first apostles of the Lord, who for His sake left all, yet not less significant for the history of the development of the Christian life of each one. (See the profound remarks of Lange, Leben Jesu, ii. p. 899.) In the most striking manner has Luke, Luk_9:25, expressed the antithesis, the gaining of the whole world, and the ἀðïëÝóáò äὲ ἑáõôüí , the loss of the personality, to whose preservation the man had brought such sacrifices. “As if thou in a general conflagration hadst saved and preserved around thee thy great and full palace, but hadst thyself to be consumed, what wouldst thou then have gained in comparison with him who out of the conflagration of his goods had rescued his life? Therefore, also, on the contrary: what does it harm a man to set at stake the whole world, which after all shall one day pass away, and burn up, if only the soul is delivered? A human soul’s true, everlasting salvation is more worth than the whole world. Thus must one reckon gain and loss over against one another, and whoever has not so reckoned will at the end experience, to his everlasting loss, how enormously he misreckons! Then will the bankrupt break out with his ôß äþóåé ἄíèñùðïò , whereto the Psalm has already answered: It ceaseth forever!” Stier.
Luk_9:26. Whosoever shall have been ashamed.—A word of the Lord which reminds us of the sublimest declarations of the fourth Gospel. The Ἰïõäáῖïé there appearing (Luk_12:42-43), show us by their example what it is to be ashamed of the Saviour, as Paul, Rom_1:16, is an example of the opposite. It is noticeable that the Saviour does not say: Whoever has been ashamed of the Son of Man, but: Whoever has been ashamed of Me and of My words—a manifest proof that here the discourse is of a being ashamed which is possible even with outward intellectual knowledge of Him and of His Messianic dignity.—Of him shall also the Son of Man be ashamed.—A milder form of the threatening, Mat_7:21; Mat_25:41, and therefore so much the more impressive, since the Saviour here represents Himself as surrounded with a threefold glory: 1. His own, 2. the Father’s, 3. that of the holy angels, who now become witnesses of the well-deserved shame that is prepared for the unfaithful disciple. It is scarcely to be doubted that the Saviour directs His eye towards His last ðáñïíóßá , at the óõíôÝëåéá ôïῦ áßῶíïò . But before the thought of its possibly great distance could weaken the impression of the warning, He concludes with a nearer revelation of His kingly glory.
Luk_9:27. But I tell you of a truth.—Even this solemn exordium, which the parallel passages in Matthew and Mark also give, causes us to expect that it will appear that the Lord Himself attributes especial importance to the assurance which He is now about to give. More plainly can He hardly intimate that His disciples shall outlive Him, that His cause shall triumph over all hostility, and that He, by the name of the Son of Man, means to designate Himself as the Messiah, for He speaks now of a kingdom in which the Son of Man gives law Nay, scarcely can we avoid the belief that this very saying, which the first three Evangelists have with so great unanimity preserved in the same connection, was one of the strongest supports for the hope of the apostolic age, that there would be a speedy and visible return of Christ. The longing for its fulfilment contributed also to preserve the letter of the promises, and the love of the heart sharpened understanding and memory. However, it cannot be difficult to decide which coming of the Saviour He wished to be immediately understood by this saying. He has here in mind, as in Mat_26:64, the revelation of His Messianic dignity at the desolation of the Jewish state, which should take place within a human generation. (For a statement and criticism of other views, see Lange, on Mat_16:28.) Thus, also, the beginning of this whole conversation is beautifully congruous with the end. For as the Saviour in the beginning had alluded to the humiliation which was about to be prepared for Him by the Jewish magnates, Luk_9:22, He now ends, Luk_9:27, by making mention of the triumph which He should win over the Jewish magnates, when the ruins of the city and of the temple should proclaim His exaltation. This His coming in His kingdom, which at least John (Luk_21:22) beheld, and apparently also others of his fellow-disciples, is at the same time a type and symbol of His last ðáñïõóßá , that mentioned Luk_9:26. The shorter form in Luke: ἰäåῖí ôὴí âáó . ô . èåïῦ must be more particularly explained from the fuller one in Matthew and Mark, in the parallel passages. Comp. moreover Mat_10:23, as a proof how not alone the Johannean but also the Synoptical Christ speaks of a continuous coming of the Messiah in different phases. In view of the intimate connection which, according to the Synoptics, exists between this saying of the Lord and the Transfiguration which is soon after related, it may be justly supposed that the disciples, even in this event, beheld the actual, even though only preliminary, fulfilment of this prophecy of the Lord.
2. Mark indicates very happily the distinction between the Saviour’s earlier and present intimations of His sufferings by the word ðáῤῥçóßᾳ , Luk_8:32. Instead of covert there come now express, instead of general more particular, intimations. Without doubt this higher truth was closely connected with the development of Jesus’ own consciousness in reference to His approaching fate, which consciousness became continually clearer the longer He looked upon the prophetic image of the Messiah and observed the course of circumstances. But quite as certain is it that there is no ground to deny the possibility of such a foreknowledge a priori (De Wette, Von Ammon, Strauss,) and that the criticism which will explain such prophecies merely ex eventu is no way purely historical, but is an entirely arbitrary dogmatism. Further on we hear from Jesus Himself, Luk_24:44-46, from the angels, ibid. (Luk_9:7-8), nay, even from His foes, Mat_27:62-63, that He prophesied not only His dying, but also His resurrection. As respects the stiff-necked doubting and afterwards the unbelieving sadness of His disciples, which there has often been a disposition to use against the genuineness of the prophecy of the Resurrection, this was certainly not the first and only time that the Saviour was better understood by crafty enemies than by friends full of prejudice. Very often the disciples took a figurative expression as literal (e.g. Mat_16:11-12); why can they not, on the other hand, have viewed a literal expression as figurative? From their point of view they could not possibly conceive that the Messiah should die, and could not therefore accommodate themselves to the prophecy of the Resurrection, and still less could they imprint it deeply in their souls. And when our Lord, according to Matthew and Mark, said that He would return definitely ôῇ ôñßôῃ ἡìÝñᾳ , into life, this is only the repetition of that which He had earlier intimated in another form, Mat_12:40; Joh_2:19. Comp. Hasert, Ueber die Vorhersagungen Jesu von seinem Tode und von seiner Auferstehung. Berlin, 1839.
3. As to the question by what means the Saviour, in the way of His theanthropic development, came to the clear insight of the certainty and necessity of His death, we are warranted by His own declaration to give the answer that He viewed the image of His Passion in the mirror of the prophetic Scriptures. Assertions that He would then have understood the Old Testament incorrectly, as this, rightly explained, says nothing whatever of a suffering or dying Messiah (De Wette, Strauss), make only then some show when one places the hermeneutics of modern science higher than those of the Lord Jesus and of His apostles enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Comp. Steudel, Theol. des A. B. p. 402, and Hoffmann, l. c. 2. p. 121. Drawn from these sources, the foresight of the Saviour was much less the fruit of a grammatical exegesis of particular Vaticinia than of a typico-symbolic apprehension of the whole Ancient Covenant. In the fate of the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah, He saw His own, and in all which former men of God had experienced and suffered, He beheld the image of His own future [or as some one has excellently said, He looked into the Old Testament and found it full of Himself.—C. C. S.]. Comp. Mar_9:13; Luk_13:33. Once familiarized with thoughts of death, the Saviour could, even by looking at the political condition of His people, come in a simple and natural way to the conception that heathens, and those heathens Romans, would be the accomplishes of the sentence of death, executioners, therefore, by whom the punishment of the cross had been introduced among conquered nations. And who would consider it as impossible that the God-man should come in still other ways than those of natural reflection to such a thought? In the most intimate communion with the Father, the Father’s will had without doubt become so clear to Him that He could with full certainty speak of a Divine äåῖ .
4. The first prediction of His Passion is of so high an importance because it gives us to view this Passion not only from the human but especially from the Divine side. In that which shall come upon Him the Saviour recognizes not only the abuse of the freedom of men, but also the fulfilment of the eternal counsel of God, who not only foresaw and permitted, but expressly willed that Christ should suffer all this. Through the voluntary obedience with which the Son submits Himself to the plainly recognized counsels of the Father, He, at the same time, converts the fate awaiting Him into the highest deed of His love.
5. The necessity of the way of suffering in order to arrive at glory is so great that this way has been ordained not only for the Master, but also for all His disciples without distinction. Here also does the word of J. Arnd hold true: “Christ has many servants, but few followers.” Only he will gradually attain to bear êáè ’ ἡìÝñáí what the Lord had to take upon Himself, who can as thoroughly deny and abjure the old man in himself as Peter once denied the Lord.
Starke:—Canstein:—The truth is only one, but errors and lies are many.—Brentius:—That Christ’s kingdom is a kingdom of the cross must not be concealed, that no one may take offence thereat.—True self-denial distinguishes the genuine Christian from every one else.—It requires much to become a Christian, still more to remain one.—So blind is our fleshly heart that it seeks life in that which brings it death.—In religion nothing comes according to our plans, but all according to God’s.—The justalionis holds good with Christ in both directions.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—It is an unhappy dying when one tastes death before he has seen the kingdom of God.—Salvation is certainly very often nearer to us than we think. Rom_13:11.
Heubner:—The Christian’s independence of popular opinions.—Gerlach:—The bearing of the Cross is not something that is reserved for certain extraordinary occasions; whoever feels his own and the world’s sin deeply, bears it daily.—J. Saurin:—Discourse on the soul, drawn, 1. From the excellence of its nature; 2. from the infiniteness of its duration; 3. from the price of its redemption.—Dietrich:—Sermon on the day of St. Peter and St. Paul upon the partially parallel Gospel, Mat_16:13-20.—Tholuck:—The daily crossbearing of the Christian: 1. In what it consists; 2. why to the very end of life it should be a daily one.
Footnotes:
Luk_9:10.—In view of the great diversity of readings in this passage, it seems to us that the reading of Tischendorf, which Meyer also has adopted, åἰò ðüëéí êáëïõìÝíçí ÂåèóáúäÜ , has, especially on internal grounds, the greatest probability in its favor. Lectio difficilior præferenda. “ Åἰò ðüëéí must have occasioned difficulty, since what follows took place not in a city, but in a wilderness (comp. Luk_9:12, and also Mar_6:31).” [Tischendorf, supported by B., L., X., Î ., Cod. Sin., has simply ôïðïí åñçìïí . Alford says: “the text not appearing to meet the requirements of the narrative following, was amended from the parallels in Matthew and Mark.”—C. C. S.]
[Luk_9:12.—More exactly: “And the day began to wear away, and the twelve coming said to him,” &c.—C. C. S.]
Luk_9:22.—According to the reading of Lachmann and Tischendorf ἀíáóôῆíáé instead of ἐãåñèῆíáé . [ Ἀíáóô ., A., C, D., 2 other uncials; ἐãåñè ., Cod. Sin., B., R., Î ., al. longe. pl. Ἀíáóô approved by Tischendorf, Lachmann, Meyer, Alford.—C. C. S.]