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(Parallels: Mat_17:14-23; Mar_9:14-21; Mat_18:1-5.)
Luk_9:37. Much people met Him.—Somewhat more in detail and with more vividness does Mark portray this meeting (Luk_9:14-15), in whose whole account the influence of the autopsy of Peter cannot be mistaken. But we find in comparing the accounts of the three Evangelists no artificial climax therein, arising from a certain desire of glorifying the Saviour (Strauss). In a very unforced manner, on the other hand, they may be united by supposing that a part of the throng had hurried to the Saviour, while another part waited for Him. Besides, the ἐîåèáìâÞèçóáí of Mark affords an unequivocal proof of the deep impression which His sudden appearance made. If we, however, consider that the people, as it appears, had not expected Him, and in their conscience were convinced of an unrighteous temper towards Him and His disciples at this instant, then His unexpected appearance must have caused them a so much stronger shock of surprise the more His composure and majesty in the descent from the mountain contrasted with the restless tumult of the people.
Luk_9:38. Look upon my son, ἐðéâëÝøáé .—Not Imp. 1st Aor. Mid., but Inf. Act depending on äÝïìáé . It is therefore not necessary with Lachmann to give the preference to the reading ἐðßâëåøïí . The prayer that the Saviour would regard and help the unhappy demoniac is made more urgent by the mention that he is the only child, a trait which Luke alone preserves, but which is not therefore the less historical.
Luk_9:39. And, lo, a spirit.—According to Matthew the sick child was at the same time a lunatic. The epileptic attacks, interrupted only by short intervals, by which the youthful sufferer was tortured, were aggravated periodically, as it appears, with the waxing of the moon. That lunacy and demoniacal suffering do not at all exclude one another, has been with the best right remarked by Lange ad loc.—He crieth out.—Not the boy (Meyer, De Wette) but the spirit, which so soon as he has possessed himself of the boy, suddenly ( ἐîáßöíçò ), by working upon the bodily organs of the possessed, causes the most hideous tones to be heard, and inflicts upon him moreover the farther mischief described in the sequel of the verse. There is nothing which intimates or requires a sudden change of subjects.
Thy disciples.—Doubtless the unhappy father had come with the purpose that Jesus should help him, and found himself not a little disappointed when he learned that the Saviour with His three intimate disciples was absent. But when he was told that the demons had often been subjected to the disciples also (Mat_10:8), he had appealed to them for compassion, and apparently expected that they should be able at least to do that which, as was said, the disciples of the Pharisees accomplished (Mat_12:27). The sight of the fearful condition of the boy had, however, filled them with mistrust as to their own powers; perhaps they had also become lately weary in fasting and prayer (Mat_17:4); at all events the attempt had failed, the evil spirit had not yielded at their word, and the consequence of this had been shame before the suppliant, displeasure with themselves, and shame before the Master. Mistrust had been sown, discord awakened, perhaps already scoffing speeches thrown out; it was high time that the Saviour should intervene when it appeared in so striking a manner that His disciples even yet were very little suited to work independently even for so short a time.
Luk_9:41. O unbelieving and perverse generation.—To whom the Saviour so speaks Matthew and Mark do not tell us, and the true reading, áὐôïῖò , in Mark, admits of many conjectures. See the principal views stated in Lange on Mat_17:17. That we have here by no means to exclude the apostles appears even from Mat_17:20, and if we in some measure place ourselves in the frame of mind in which to-day the Saviour found Himself, and think once again on the great contrast which, for His feeling, existed between the scene on the summit and that at the foot of the mountain, we then understand how He could in this moment name all that surrounded Him, although in different measure, a ãåíåὰ ἄðéóôïò : a single word, which, however, betrays a world of melancholy. All the conflict, the self-denial, the tension of His powers which it cost His love to tarry continuously in an environment which in everything was the opposite of His inner life and effort, resounds overwhelmingly therein. How much harder this strife had become to Him, after that which He had just heard, seen, and enjoyed in the same night, we only venture in silence to conjecture. But we ask boldly whether this lamentation also may not be considered as a psychological proof of the fact that the Transfiguration on the mount was really an objective fact.
Bring thy son hither.—As to the more particular circumstances, the graphic account of Mark is especially worthy of comparison with this. The command is intended to contribute towards awakening the believing expectation of the father and making him thus receptive for the hearing of his prayer. Just at the approach to the Saviour the last paroxysm supervenes in all its might. “Quod atrocius solito in hominem sævit diabolus, ubi ad Christum adducitur, mirum non est, quum quo proprior affulget Christi gratia et efficacius agit, eo impotentius furit Satan.” Calvin.
Luk_9:43. At the majesty.—Here also, as often in Luke, the glory redounding to God by the healing is the crown of the Saviour’s miracle. Comp. Luk_5:26; Luk_7:16.
Luk_9:44. Let these sayings sink down into your ears.—We see that the Saviour is to be misled by no false appearances; on the other hand, He will draw His disciples’ attention to the close connection between the “Hosannas!” and the “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” They are to give heed to those words, that is, to those eulogies of the people. “In your ears,” primus gradus capiendi. Bengel.—For the Son of Man, ãÜñ , not in the sense of “namely,” as if the words referred to were those that now followed, but as Meyer takes it: “The disciples are to bear in memory these admiring speeches on account of the contrast in which His own fate would now soon appear with the same. They are, therefore, to build no hopes upon them, but only to recognize in them the mobile vulgus.”
Luk_9:45. But they understood not.—A description of the ignorance and uncertainty of the disciples, which gives us to recognize in Luke the admirable psychologist. The word of the Saviour is not understood by the disciples: this chief fact stands at the beginning. The ground of it: ἦí ðáñáêåêáë .: there lies a êÜëõììá upon the eye of their spirit, in consequence of which they cannot comprehend the meaning of the Lord, and because this perceptio is lacking, neither can there be any cognitio. The only one who could have cleared up the obscurity for them would have been the Master Himself, but Him they do not venture to interrogate personally, and remain therefore in the dark. The natural consequence of these obscure anticipations, which do not come to clearness in their minds, can only be sadness, which Matthew (Luk_17:23) gives as their prevailing mood after the prediction of the Passion has been renewed.
Luk_9:46. A reasoning … which of them was the greatest.—That just in this period of time such a strife could arise, shows most plainly how little the Saviour’s repeated prediction of His suffering had yet taken root in the mind of His disciples. In their thoughts they had already distributed Crowns, while the Master had the Cross in His eye. Occasion for such a strife they had been able to find a sufficiency of in the days last preceding, even if the germ of rivalry had not been already existent in their hearts. The declaration to Simon that he should be the rock of the church; the singling out of the three intimate disciples in the night of the Transfiguration, in whose demeanor it was easy to see that they had something great to keep silence concerning; the miraculous payment which the Saviour had but just before discharged for Himself and Simon (Mat_17:24-27); finally, the awakened enthusiasm of the people subsequently to the healing of the lunatic boy, all these might easily coöperate to quicken their rivalry and earthly-mindedness. According to Luke the Saviour saw the thoughts of their hearts. According to the more exact and vivid account of Mark (Luk_9:33-34), He Himself first asks after the cause of their dispute, which they scarcely venture to name to Him.
Luk_9:47. Took a child.—Just as in the Gospel of John (Luk_13:1-11), so does the Saviour in the Synoptics also give force to His instruction by a symbolic act. The tradition of the Greek church that the here-mentioned child was no other than the afterwards so renowned Ignatius (Christophoros; see Eusebius, H. E. iii. 30.; Niceph. ii. 3) rests probably on his own declaration in his Epist. ad Smyrn. Luke 3 : ἐãὼ ãὰñ êáὶ ìåôὰ ôὴí ἀíÜóôáóéí ἐí óáñêὶ áὐôὸí ïῖäá . Even assuming that the Epistle is genuine and that ïῖäá is to be understood of a meeting in the body, yet that which this father here states of the time after Jesus’ resurrection does not of itself give any ground for the assumption that he had even earlier come into personal intercourse with the Saviour.
Luk_9:48. Whosoever shall receive this child.—No reminiscence from Mat_10:40, the reception of which in this passage takes from the Saviour’s whole discourse in Luke all continuity (De Wette), but one of the utterances which the Saviour might fittingly repeat more than once. By the fact that Jesus shows how high He places the child, He commends to them the childlike mind; and in what this consists, appears from Mat_18:4. The point of comparison therefore is formed, not by the receptivity, the striving after perfection, the absence of pretension in the child (De Wette), but most decidedly by its humility, which was so entirely lacking in them. By this humility, the child’s understanding was yet free from vain imagination, the child’s heart from rivalry, the child’s will from stubbornness. That the Saviour, however, does not by this teach any perfect moral purity of children, or deny their share of the general corruption brought by sin, is very justly remarked by Olshausen, ad loc.
In My name, ἐðὶ ôῷ ὀíüìáôß ìïõ , that is, because he confesses My name. It is here self-evident that the expression: “Whosoever receives one such child, receives Me,” is applicable not to the child in itself, but to the child as a type of childlike minds. Such an one is not only the true subject, but even the legitimate representative of the humble Christ, even as He is the image of the Father, who is greatest when He humbles Himself the lowest. Erasmus: Quisquis igitur demiserit semet ipsum, hic est ille maximus in regno cœlorum. Subjective lowliness is here designated as the way to objective greatness.
Luk_9:49. And John answered and said.—Comp. Mar_9:38-40. It gives us a favorable view of the spirit and temper of the apostolical circle in this moment, that the word of the Lord commending humility, instead of wounding their self-love, awakens their conscience. John at least calls to mind a previous case, in which he feels that he dealt against the principle here uttered by the Lord, inasmuch as he had not received one of the little ones who had confessed His name. Although he already conjectures that the Master cannot approve of this behavior, he modestly discloses it to Him.
We saw one.—Even as in Act_19:13, here also had the name “Jesus” served as a weapon in the hand of one of the exorcists. An admirable proof of the authority which even a stranger attributed to the name of the Saviour. The man had actually more than once succeeded in its use, but the disciples out of ill-concealed rivalry and ambition had forbidden it him, inasmuch as the command: “Cast out devils,” had been by the Master exclusively given to them. Perhaps this prohibition had been given to the exorcist only lately, when the nine disciples had failed in the healing of the lunatic boy, and were therefore still less able to bear that another should succeed in this respect better than they. Undoubtedly the Saviour would have reprehended this arbitrary conduct of His disciples more sharply if they had not thus voluntarily and humbly acknowledged to Him their perverse behavior.
Luk_9:50. He that is not against us.—It is not to be denied that many manuscripts here read ὑìῶí for ἡìῶí , see Lachmann, ad loc. According to Stier this passage belongs to those where the correction of the Lutheran translation appears urgently important; since the “us” here in the mouth of the Saviour destroys almost the whole sense of His language. Olshausen, De Wette, and others also read ὑìῶí . Two reasons however exist, which move us to give the preference to the Recepta. In the first place, the reading ἡìῶí is the most difficult, and it is easier to explain how ἡìῶí could be changed into ὑìῶí , than the reverse. Besides, the preceding ãÜñ appears to favor the common reading, since they had just been speaking of casting out devils in the name of the Saviour. But, however this may be, the difference of the sense, even with the reading changed, is far less than, superficially considered, it might appear; for, even if the Lord said, “He that is not against you is,” etc., yet He still means the cause of the disciples only so far as this might be at the same time called His own cause, and therefore indirectly He includes Himself also. The fuller form of the answer is found in Mark; see the remarks there. Suffice it, the Saviour considers the doing of miracles in His name as an unconscious homage to His person; this homage as a proof of well-wishing, and this well-wishing as a pledge that He, in the first instance at least ( ôá÷ý ), had no assault to fear on this side, as, for example, the charge of a covenant with Beelzebub. It appears here, at the same time, how painfully this blasphemy, to which He had lately been exposed, affected Him.
2. The childlike mind which the Saviour demands from His disciples is so far from standing in contrast with the doctrine of a general corruption through sin, that on the other hand there is required for the attaining of this mind an entire transformation of the inner man. In truth, Mat_18:3 says nothing else than Joh_3:3. And here also the agreement of the Synoptical with the Johannean Christ comes strikingly into view.
3. The answer of the Saviour to John in reply to his inquiry respecting the exorcist, is an admirable proof of the holy mildness of our Lord. It breathes a similar spirit to the expression of Moses, respecting the prophesying of Eldad and Medad, Num_11:26-29, and that of Paul respecting those who preach Christ through envy and strife, Philipp. Luk_1:18, and gives at the same time a standard, according to which in every case the philanthropic and Christian activity even of those must be judged respecting whose personal life of faith we may be uncertain. It is true the Saviour had declared, in the Sermon on the Mount, that it is possible to cast out devils in His name and yet be damned (Mat_7:22-23), but even if this should hereafter come to light on that day before His judgment-seat, still it was something which His disciples could not as yet decide. They were continually to hope the best, and the more so as he who with hostile intentions, and without any faith at heart should attempt exorcism in His name would certainly not succeed in it. The favorable result of such an endeavor was a proof that, for the moment, they had to do with no enemy of the cause of the Saviour. The rule given here by Jesus is not in the least in conflict with His saying given Mat_12:30. The rule: “He that is not for Me is against Me,” is applicable in judging of our own temper; the other: “He that is not against Me,” etc., must guide us in our judgment respecting others. The first saying gives us to understand that entire neutrality in the Saviour’s cause is impossible, the other warns us against bigoted exclusiveness. Read the two admirable discourses of A. Vinet upon these two apparently contradictory sayings under the title: La tolérance et l’intolérance de l’Évangile, found in his Discours sur quelques sujets relig., p. 268–314, and the essay of Ullmann in the Deutschen Zeitschrift, by H. F. A. Schneider, 1851, p. 21 seq.
Starke:—Langii Op.:—Oh, how many parents experience the extremest grief of heart on account of their children; but how few there appear to be of them, who permit themselves thereby to be drawn unto Christ.—Brentius:—The devil is a fierce enemy of man, if he gets any leave of God.—Cramer:—Christ is far mightier than all the saints; therefore in distress flee not to these, but to Christ Himself.—When man’s help disappears, God’s help appears.—Brentius:—The wise and long-suffering Saviour knows still how to bring in again and to make good that which His servants have neglected and delayed; O excellent consolation!—Christ and Belial agree not together, 2Co_6:15.—Osiander:—When it is well with us, let us think that it might also be ill with us, that we fall not into carnal security.—Hedinger:—The flesh does not like to hear of suffering, and will not understand it.—If there is even yet so much ignorance in spiritual matters in the regenerate, how must it be with the unregenerate?—Jesus is thinking of suffering, the disciples of worldly dignity; how wide apart is the mind of the Lord Jesus and of man!—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—How needful to watch over one’s heart, since, even in enlightened souls, such haughty thoughts arise.—In children there is often more good to be found than any look for in them.—True humility of heart an infallible sign of grace.—Quesnel:—God is in Christ, and Christ in His members.—True elevation is in humility.—Hedinger:—Let Christ only be preached in any way, Php_1:18.—Blind zeal for religion is the greatest error in religion, Rom_10:2.—True love approves the good, let it be done where and by whom it will, 1Th_5:21.—Cramer:—When servants and children of God agree in the main matter, it is no harm though they be somewhat different in words or ceremonies.
Lisco:—Defective faith.—The might of sin over man: 1. How it reveals itself; 2. how it is overcome by Jesus.—Heubner:—John (Luk_9:49), an example of well-meant but unwise zeal and sectarianism.—The spirit of Christ is not bound.—There is a displeasure at good when found in others, to which even the good are tempted.—The boundary between true liberality and indifference.—Palmer:—1. What do our children bring us? 2. What have we prepared for them?—Marezoll:—The noble simplicity of the Lord: 1. Where and how it displays itself; 2. what profit it brings.—Beck:—Zeal for the honor of the Saviour may be, 1. Well-meant, and yet, 2. un-Christian.—Arndt:—The true dignity of the Christian.
Footnotes:
[Luk_9:43.—Van Oosterzee’s omission of ὁ Ἰçóïῦò is according to Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford with Cod. Sin., B., D., L., X., Î .—C. C. S.]
Luk_9:48.—Rec.: ἔóôáé . For ἐóôé we have the authority of B., C., L., X., Cursives, [Vulgate,] Origen, Cyprian, &c., and the probability that ἔóåôáé is a correction according to Mat_18:4. [This reference to Mat_18:4 is unintelligible, since the undisputed text there is ἐóôéí .—C.C.S.]