James Nisbet Commentary - Luke 7:12 - 7:12

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James Nisbet Commentary - Luke 7:12 - 7:12


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

LIFE FROM THE DEAD

‘There was a dead man carried out.’

Luk_7:12

Let us fix our thoughts on some of the salient details and teachings of this instructive narrative.

I. Jesus Christ was there.—So far as we know it was His only visit to Nain. He knew what had happened and what He would do. All is designed and arranged beforehand. There is no chance. All is ordered as then, now, and always, here and everywhere, according to the same good will and unerring wisdom.

II. Then note the sympathy.—This word ‘compassion’ is one of the keynotes of the record of the Saviour’s life. Again and again it is told of Him. The sight of any kind of suffering or of trouble at once aroused the feeling. The widowed mother speaks no word. She offers no petition. Perhaps she has never so much as heard of the Prophet of Nazareth. But there is a silent eloquence in her tears that speaks to the soul of the Man Christ Jesus. A true compassion is always anxious without solicitation to soothe and to relieve. It may be that only a word can be spoken. But the simple word, coming from an ‘honest and good heart,’ is apt to go to the heart. But the Lord Jesus in softly saying ‘Weep not,’ is here engaged in part of the work He came to fulfil. The promised Messiah was to bind up the brokenhearted.

III. Then came the word of majesty and might—‘Arise!’—There is a rising up of the prostrate form. There must have been at first a bewildered look of blank astonishment. Then there is heard the well-known voice of the living man. The words are audible to the bearers of the bier, and to the amazed mother. The crowd presses on and gathers round in reverent awe.

IV. The reunion.—Think of the inexpressible joy of that first renewed embrace between mother and son. He who had originally given him gives him back to her once again. He Himself had the blessed experience of a mother’s love, and was to know when ‘the hour was come’ what it was for an only son to part from a beloved mother and she a widow, and that upon a cross. May we not venture to see in this tender act a dim forecast of that time of happy reunions when the dear ones, now for a time lost to one another, shall be given back to one another.

Rev. Canon Austen.

Illustration

‘Observe carefully a difference between the wording of the Old and of the Revised Version. It is not without significance. The former reads, “there was a dead man carried out,” the latter, “there was carried out one that was dead.” Notice the distinction, not a “dead man,” but “one dead.” Strictly speaking, a dead man is a contradiction in terms. A man cannot in a true and perfect and absolute sense “die.” A man has body, soul, and spirit. His body may and does die. But not his soul, still less his spirit. Therefore only part of the man dies, not the man himself, in all that is implied in manhood. The New Version uses the indeterminate indefinite word “one.” What does it indicate? Not a mass of matter, not a neuter object, but a being that had life apart from all else and a something that happened to a part of that being, a something which we call “death.” This is a significant difference. It points to a condition which we do not altogether understand, and which it is therefore hard to describe with accuracy. The truth is our present resources fail us when we try to set death before us. We are face to face with a mystery which partly baffles us. So our thoughts and our words become confused.’



THE WEEPING WIDOW

‘And she was a widow.’

Luk_7:12

The power of the Gospel of Christ lies in its extreme simplicity. And so in this chapter we get one of the simplest and most beautiful stories. ‘And she was a widow.’ Surely this is the saddest relation of any life. Her all was taken, he whom she loved was gone. And in this case the blow was double; the son, the only son, who might have been the stay of the home, has been taken too. The last sad offices of the dead are to be performed, and as the procession leaves the city, by chance—what a wonderful chance it was!—she meets the Lord Jesus. She waits, and Jesus has compassion, and it is then by the touch of the Son of God the sleeper awakes, and the soul is brought back from the limitless life to be bound down by the ties of human nature once more.

I. What was the motive which induced our Lord to perform this miracle?—The motive must have been not, first of all, compassion. Surely our Lord did not perform His miracles because He was compassionate. He performed this miracle to vindicate His essential title of Him Who was the Lord. This name, Lord, means that Christ has gained a victory over the grave and death. It is the name of the Old Testament—God; it is the grandest witness to the Divinity and power of Christ Himself. Christ performs this miracle to vindicate His title as the Lord of nature, as God Himself, incarnate in the flesh. What is the scope of His sovereignty and dominion? The scope and sovereignty of Him Who is Lord and God is life itself. Just as in ordinary life, dealing with life is the finest and grandest thing that any man can take part in, the problems of life and the cares of life and the needs of humanity, so Christ claims to be the Lord and God of all life.

II. And yet this poor woman was a widow. Is not that the attitude of her who is the Spouse of Christ—the Church of God, as she watches the stream of human life pour forth from the city of baptism and baptismal grace? She still is a widow, weeping for the return of her husband. And yet in the midst of her doubt and despair, she must know there is an assurance of Divine love, that her future lies beyond, where she may be presented to Christ ‘without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.’ The Church is still a widow, and she weeps over many of her sons. She weeps over the clergy of the church who, time after time, have forgotten their ordination vows. Or, again, the Church weeps for her sons, the younger sons, who, in confirmation, have made their pledge; or the young communicant, who, in the first zeal of communion, has received the body and blood of the Lord. They have all forgotten. The Church must weep because so much of her life is a procession of the dead. Not altogether. There is a spark of Divine fire waiting to be called out; there is the baptismal grace deep down, the accumulated store of grace waiting to work its way out if we only sow well. If all the grace of God that has been planted in the world were to burst into life by the co-operation of the human will, how much grander and better would be the Christianity which we profess! And yet the Church must weep, and rightly so. The Church must have a heart. The life of the Church lies in her sympathy. It is going to be the solution of all the distress and turmoil—sympathy all round from the highest to the lowest.

III. And for ourselves, what is our prayer at this time, as we think of the beautiful story of the widow of Nain? You have the image of God planted within you. What is that image doing? Is it glowing and shining clear? Is the day of your baptism as fresh in its power as it was in yonder days? The image of God, the power of religion, lies in Christ our Lord, not a mere compassionate man, but Christ ever present, He Who is the Lord and giver of all life. And so there should be across our life a new flood of light, across the congregation as it gathers Sunday by Sunday, not as listeners and hearers, but as worshippers of the Unseen, and yet ever present, Christ.

Rev. A. Eglinton.