James Nisbet Commentary - Luke 19:42 - 19:42

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James Nisbet Commentary - Luke 19:42 - 19:42


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THE COMMANDINGNESS OF CHRIST

‘If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.’

Luk_19:42

There is a commandingness about the figure of Christ here which we at once feel, and for reasons of which we are mostly conscious.

I. The occasion itself in its historic importance demands it.—This is the Royal entry of the King of the Jews. They are around Him with the palm branch, the Hosanna, the acclamations which proclaim His Messiahship. This is a coming which brings salvation to the Jew. This advent, above all other advents of the Son of Man, is His advent, to His own.

II. It is the coming of the Son of Man as Man to men.—Other kings have come to claim from their imperial city the homage of their subjects. But no king on his triumph day shed tears over the fate of his city, and wept aloud over the picture of its fast-approaching doom. The imaginative tenderness of the scene, its intense humanity, its vivid picturesqueness, unite with its historic uniqueness in appealing to our attention. For this day is the triumph day of Jesus Christ’s Passion, the riding on in majesty of Him Who is about to ‘bow His meek head to mortal pain.’ It is for us the day of the coming of the Son of Man as Man to men.

III. It is the solemn assertion by Christ of His Lordship over all human history.—We behold Him in this scene as the Lord of the ages, the Master of prophetic fulfilments, the Prince of the kings of the earth. In that one prophecy which ushers in the Gentile age in which we live, Christ puts His seal upon all the long Jewish and Gentile history which had gone before, interprets to us and to all men its moral and spiritual meaning, impresses upon us its direct relationship to Himself.

—
Rev. T. A. Gurney.

Illustration

‘Christ will be, must be, supreme. For our admonitions as Gentiles and Christians these warnings are given us upon whom the ends of the world are come. Jerusalem will indeed rise again. The hour is very near. Christ’s supremacy over history secures that. But as we look back over these long ages of her desolation the lesson of her ruin is a solemn one. Thus Christ asserted on one great typical occasion His supreme place in the lives of men. Thus He will once again assert it. Surely our desire must be that He should come and judge our faults and cleanse our characters, and mark keenly what is amiss now that we may have acceptance then. “There is mercy with Thee; therefore Thou mayest be feared.” Messiah of God, anointed as man’s Saviour, Son of Man touched with the feeling of my infirmities and weeping over my sin, Supreme, All-potent Lord of all human history, Masterworker in Whose hands the secrets of the ages lie, search my own heart now and see “if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” ’