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From this to Luk_9:56 we have a piece of history recorded by no other evangelist but Luke; but is of great use to us, both to let us know, that our Saviour laid down his life, no man took it from him, and to let us see to what height differences about religion ordinarily arise, and what intemperateness is often found, as to them, in the spirits of the best of people, as also what is the will of our great Master as to the government of our spirits in such cases. The going up of our Saviour to Jerusalem at this time was his last journey thither.
When the time was come that he should be received up; ’ En tw sumplhrousyai tav hmerav thv analhqewv autou; that is, when the time was drawing nigh when Christ should ascend up into heaven; so the word is used, Mar_16:19 Act_1:11 1Ti_3:16. But why doth the evangelist express it thus? Why doth he not say, when he was to suffer; but skips over his death, and only mentions his ascension?
1. That is included; Christ was first to suffer, and then to enter into his glory.
2. Christ’s death is called a lifting up from the earth, Joh_12:32.
3. What if we should say that Christ’s death is thus expressed, to let us know that the death of Christ was to him a thing that his eye was not so much upon, as the glory which he immediately was to enter into after;
so as he calls his very death a taking up, as that which immediately preceded it, thereby teaching us to overlook sufferings and death, as not worthy to be named or mentioned, and to look only to that taking up into our Father’s glory, which is the portion of all believers; when they die, they are but taken up from the earth: and though our bodies still stay behind a while, death having a power over us, yet of them also there shall be a taking up. Upon both which takings up our eyes should be so fixed, as to overlook all the sufferings of this life, as not worthy to be named.
He stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. Some think this was not our Saviour’s last motion thither before his passion, but then it would not have been said proswpon esthrixe, he set his face, or, he confirmed his face. He was now in Galilee, Jerusalem (that killed the prophets) was the place designed for his suffering; betwixt Galilee and Jerusalem lay Samaria, through which he was to pass.