James Nisbet Commentary - Luke 13:23 - 13:23

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James Nisbet Commentary - Luke 13:23 - 13:23


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

A PUZZLING QUESTION

‘Then said one unto Him, Lord, are there few that be saved?’

Luk_13:23

This question was put to Jesus by one who met with Him as He was journeying to Jerusalem. Yet it was not the question of that one inquirer alone. It has been asked by the heart, or the mind, or the lips, of men, from generation to generation.

I. A question of the lips.—Often it is a question but of the lips alone. ‘Are there few that be saved?’ asks the frivolous trifler who has chanced for a moment to be within the sound of spiritual things, and utters the first question which a vain curiosity may suggest, or which he has caught from another’s lips; and then he passes on regardless of the answer, careless whether the saved be many or whether they be few, or whether there be, indeed, any salvation at all.

II. A question of the mind.—‘Are there few that be saved?’ asks the religious controversialist, and he is already well prepared with an answer which is quite satisfactory to himself. Already he has formed his system of opinions according to which he measures and marks out the ways of God. He calls himself a High Churchman, or he calls himself Evangelical; he talks of points of doctrine, discusses disputed questions, baptism, or Church authority, or private judgment, and gets you into conversation that he may judge by your answer whether you belong to his party or not, and he is ready with clever argument and quoted text to prove himself right or to prove you wrong.

III. A question of the heart.—But often the question is put in a very different tone. It has become a question of the heart. ‘Lord, are there few that be saved?’ may be the trembling, earnest, desperate cry of one who is perplexed and bewildered by the dreadful power of evil; who sees that one dark shadow resting upon all; who thinks of the lives which seem to be wasted and aimless, of the purposes which come to nought, of the resolutions which are not fulfilled, of the slumber, the indifference, the sin, in which men throw away the life which God has given them; while here and there are a few whose lives are ‘saved’ and turned to glorious account, who seem to stand alone in the solitude of their holiness, and to have attained a stature which enables them to breathe a purer air. ‘Lord, are there few that be saved?’ Are we straitened in Thee, or are we straitened in ourselves? Is our Father’s love, indeed, restrained within such narrow limits? Are there indeed so few to whom it shall be given to have victory and to triumph over the world, the flesh, and the devil? Is it not written that the world has been redeemed?

In this way the meaning of our question deepens down according to the depth of character and the earnestness of purpose of him who asks it.