Deeper Commentary

18:1 And he spoke a parable to them, that they should always pray and not lose heart, saying- This comes straight after the teaching in chapter 17 about readiness for the Lord's coming; and continued, intense prayer is part of that preparedness. There are so many allusions by Paul to this verse and the ensuing parable. This shows just how like us Paul was; he had his favourite parables, one or two that really stuck in his mind, just as we do. And he alluded to them! They were in his heart, to inspire and motivate him, just as the Lord intended. Paul picks up the idea of not fainting in 2 Thess. 3:13: "Brethren, be not weary (s.w. "not to faint") in well doing" . What well-doing did Paul have in mind? Attending the Sunday meetings? Being patient with some difficult sister in the ecclesia? The connection with Lk. 18:1 tells us what he had in mind: keep on praying intensely. It's no co-incidence that Paul started that section of 2 Thess. 3 (in v.1) with the exhortation: "Brethren, pray for us". And he concludes it with the same rubric: "Brethren, be not weary" (faint not), in your prayers. He knew from the parable that repeated prayer was powerful. And so he asks them to keep at it for him, because he needed it. Perhaps Paul had the same thing in mind when he wrote to the Ephesians (3:13): "In (Christ) we have boldness and access with confidence (to God, in prayer, cp. Heb. 4:16)... wherefore I desire that you faint not (s.w. Lk. 18:1) at my tribulations"; is he not implying 'You know how powerful prayer is, so don't faint in it, you know what struggles I'm having, please keep on praying for me, like that persistent widow in the parable'. This fits in with a number of other passages in which Paul unashamedly begs his brethren to pray for him. In this we see his humility, his high regard for other brethren who were almost certainly weaker than him, and also the physical desperation of his daily life. 

18:2 There was in a city a judge, who did not fear God and had no regard for man- The judge, representing God, lived in the same city as the widow, representing us (:3). The Kingdom of God is likened to a city which we are to enter. We are in a sense within it now, having entered through the narrow gate. The unjustness of the judge is setting up the final point of this parable; the end stress of the parable is that if this is how an unjust judge acts, then how much more sensitive is God to our cries for justice. But we are to note that Israel were commended to appoint judges who feared God (Ex. 18:21). The existence in Israel of judges who did not fear God was therefore a criticism of Israel as a whole. The judge did not "regard" man; the word means to respect to the point of reverence (s.w. 20:13; Mt. 21:37; Heb. 12:9). The implication is that God so respects us, that He, unlike this judge, is eager to hear our prayers. And we are to respect others likewise; the implication here is that if we fear / respect God, we will respect men who are made in His image. And disrespect of human persons is thereby disrespect of God.

18:3 And there was a widow in that city; and she came often to him, saying: Give me justice against my adversary- Note the Psalmists' joy that judgment is coming (Ps. 67:4; 96:12,13). The same spirit can be seen in the parable of the woman who keeps begging the unjust judge to open her case. She may have had her little piece of land taken away from her, whatever it was, she is confident she has a watertight case and this is why she so pesters the judge to judge her (Lk. 18:1-5). Now this is a powerful challenge to those believers who seem to fear the judgment process. David shows the same spirit in asking God to 'avenge my cause' (Ps. 35:23). There is the same confidence that by grace, he is in the right and longs for justice to be done. So much of Romans is dedicated to the images of the court room; we are justified, and we should  be earnestly seeking the vindication of Spirit against flesh.

The parable speaks especially of faith in prayer in the last days before the Lord's coming (:7,8). The implication is that the woman, the church, is under persecution from a great satan / adversary; and her earnest prayers will elicit God's dramatic judgment and intervention in this earth. This is all very much the language of the book of Revelation.

Much of the pain felt by the spiritually abused focuses upon the issue of injustice. They were treated like this, but others are treated like that; you can't break bread in a church, but he can; she isn't allowed to attend the gathering but he is, and so forth. The Lord told a parable about a woman who repeatedly asked for 'justice', with the implication that she would only eventually find it at the Lord's return. But He went straight on to tell another parable, about the repentant man who beat upon his breast saying "God have mercy upon me, the sinner"; this man "went down to his house justified". The theme of 'justification' is thus a thread which continues from the woman demanding 'justification' (Gk.) against her abuser (Lk. 18:3). The Lord's point wasn't merely that justice will only be ultimately done at His return; but further, that we are all serious sinners, who have been 'justified' by God's grace; and this colossal-scale experience of receiving undeserved justice / justification should mean that we're not so concerned about receiving justice in human matters in this life. There cannot be perfection this side of God's Kingdom being established upon earth. To seek for perfection in relationships is perhaps reflective of a lack of faith or understanding relating to the Kingdom of perfection which is yet to come. One of the greatest things for me about that Kingdom is the unity and perfection of relationships which there will then be. It is, however, all so hard because the New Testament presents how the church should be- an ideal of loving, sensitive, caring relationships in the spirit of Christ. And this is very attractive to us. It's very hard, therefore, to face the reality that this great intention, this lofty possibility, has actually been left unachieved by the church. It's like reading the descriptions of God's house in Ezekiel 40-48. This wonderful temple could've come about in Ezekiel's time. The possibilities are given in such great detail- but their fulfillment was quite simply dependent upon whether Judah wished to make it come real by living up to it (Ez. 43:10-12). And they chose not to. It's the same with the ideal "house of God" presented to us in the New Testament. Those who tend towards perfectionism find this very hard to cope with. It is indeed a tragedy, that so much Divine potential is as it were wasted, not realized, by our dysfunction. But none of this should take away from the personal reality of salvation and relationship with God which we each have. This is not to say that exposing abuse and dealing with it shouldn't happen. It should. But let's not feel that if justice isn't done, we are somehow without justice. We are the ultimately justified, and our standing before God's judgment seat is far more significant that our standing before that of mere humans.

First century Palestinian peasant courts have been described in some detail. They involved a mass of men shouting at the judge, who usually decided cases according to who gave the largest bribe. Women never went to court. It was a man's world there. This woman had no male in her extended family to speak for her. She had no money to pay a bribe. But still she went to court and sought to persuade the judge. In this element of unreality we see the bravery of prayer, the height of the challenge; that we who have nothing and no human chance of being heard, will indeed be heard. It would've struck the initial peasant hearers of the story as strange that above all the male shouting, somehow this heroic woman was heard- and was heard repeatedly. Again, we see an encouragement to prayer. And to liken powerful praying to a woman was in itself unusual in that male dominated age.

18:4 And for a while he would not, but afterward he said to himself: Though I neither fear God, nor regard man- The idea is that eventually there is response even from one who has no sensitivity to people nor fear of God; and how much more quickly and deeply will come the response from the just judge of all, who does "regard man" with great pity (Ps. 144:3).

18:5 Yet because this widow troubles me, I will give her justice, lest she wear me out by her continual coming- The connection is perhaps with the man of the parable in Lk. 11:8, who was so bold and confident in his request that he shamelessly 'troubled' the rich man to give him his request; and this too was explaining our confidence in prayer to the Father. 

The widow by her continual coming in prayer 'wearied' the judge into responding; Strong defines this Greek word as meaning 'to beat and black and blue' (RVmg. gives "bruise"). It's a strange way of putting it, but this is another reminder of the intense struggle of prayer. Jacob's wrestling with the Angel was really a clinging on to him, pleading with tears for the blessing of forgiveness; and in this he was our example (Hos. 12:4-6). Lk. 21:36 RV speaks of the believer 'prevailing' with God in prayer. Our prayers are to give the Father no "rest" (Is. 62:7), no cessation from violent warfare (Strong). See on Col. 2:1. Again, the idea is that if the unjust judge is so sensitive to this woman's words, to the point he feels beaten up by them- how much more sensitive is the Father to our prayers!

The parable of the widow who keeps nagging the free-wheeling judge is rather humanly unlikely. Would such a tough guy really pay attention to the repeated requests of the woman? But although he considers himself independent of both God and men, he ends up being controlled by the widow. This reflects the immense power which there is in human prayer, and God’s willingness to respond if we are importunate enough.

18:6 And the Lord said: Hear what the unrighteous judge says- Perhaps the fact the ungodly judge is worn out by the woman's requests is the element of unreality in the story; for usually, if she paid no bribe, she would not even get a hearing, let alone be repeatedly listened to. And it flags up the essential point of the parable, which is that God will be even more sensitive to us. The emphasis is on the word "unrighteous". The righteous judge is going to be even more sensitive and quicker to respond than the unrighteous judge. The justice of God as judge is emphasized throughout the Old Testament, and the Lord describes Himself likewise as a just judge who responds to what He hears [rather than to bribes or pressure from others in human society, Jn. 5:30].

18:7 And shall not God give justice to His chosen, who cry to Him day and night?- The unjust judge was worn down by the woman's repeated appeals. The implication is that God is far more sensitive and will therefore respond quicker. Even though His response may appear slow, compared to the magnitude of our request, His response is quick.

18:7- see on 2 Pet. 3:9.
The many connections between Revelation and the Gospels need to be followed up; the incidents in Christ's earthly experience seem to be woven by him into the fabric of the visions he gives John. The theme of persecution is especially common. The widow crying to God because of persecution represents the prayers of the "elect" or "chosen" remnant of the last days (Lk. 18:7 cp. Mk. 13:20). They will be asking for vengeance against the beast which is persecuting them, and thus this parable is the basis for the souls under the altar crying out for vengeance (Rev. 6:9). Christ's return is therefore the day of vengeance (Lk. 21:22; Is. 34:8; 61:2; 63:4) of his persecuted latter day ecclesia. Despite the power of prayer in bringing about the Lord's return in vengeance, Lk. 18:9-14 continues in this same context to warn that despite this:
- Perhaps the Lord won't find such faith in prayer when he returns
- Many will pray but be so sure of their own righteousness that their prayers are hindered
- The disciples will tend to despise the little ones in the ecclesia.
All these are latter day problems: abuse of "the little ones", self-righteousness and lack of real faith in prayer.

Will He be slow to help them?- God will shorten the period of time of trouble before His return (2 Pet. 3:9); and we read that He will also lengthen the period of grace (Lk. 13:6-9)… if His people ask Him. What He ‘will’ do perhaps should be read as what He can do. And this is why so much prophecy is conditional. Significantly, no other religion that I know contains this feature- of a God so passionate and so real that He will change His stated will and intention for the sake of His people’s prayers.

The AV "though he bear long with them" is accurate. 2 Pet. 3:9 uses the same word in teaching that "The Lord... is longsuffering to us-ward" (AV) of the last days. This longsuffering of Jesus spoken of by Peter alludes to this parable of the persistent widow, whose continued requests should match our prayers for the second coming (the vengeance of our adversaries which she requested will only come then). "Though he bear long" (s.w. 'longsuffering') with us, "God shall avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him" (Lk. 18:7 AV). The "us" whom Peter refers to as experiencing the Lord's longsuffering ('bearing long') are therefore to be equated with "the elect" in their fervent prayers for the second coming. The days being shortened for the elect's sake therefore refers to the hastening of the second coming on account of the elect's prayers (Mt. 24:22). In view of the later references to Mt. 24, it is not unreasonable to think that Peter is consciously alluding to Mt. 24:22 concerning the shortening of the days for the sake of the elect's prayers, through his allusion to the parable of the persistent widow of Lk. 18:7.

18:8 I say to you, that He will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, shall he find faith on the earth?- “Nevertheless", despite the fact God answers prayer, being far more sensitive to our cries than the unjust judge- it is still a question as to whether there will be faith in prayer in the last days, at the Son of Man's coming. Whilst the article is indeed used, "the faith" doesn't have to mean 'the set of doctrines which comprise the one faith'. It may refer to that, but the article may be used here simply for emphasis. Will He find faith, the kind of faith which there ought to be given His sensitivity to us? The implication is that the experience of answered prayer ought to develop faith, but such will be the spiritual perils of the last days and the lack of serious prayer, that there may well be no faith in the final generation. Lot has just been cited in chapter 17 as an example of the latter day believers- and he was weak in faith, although saved. Likewise even the five wise virgins of the parable are sleeping when they ought to have stayed awake for their Lord's return.

The theme of prayer continues. Despite the power of prayer in bringing about the Lord's return in vengeance, Lk. 18:9-14 continues in this same context to warn that despite this:
- Perhaps the Lord won't find such faith in prayer when he returns
- Many will pray but be so sure of their own righteousness that their prayers are hindered
- The disciples will tend to despise the little ones in the ecclesia.
May we not give way to these latter day temptations!

There is the real possibility that when Christ returns, none will hold the faith. Only eight people were truly watching when the flood came; and Peter cites this as an example for us at the time of Christ's return. No wonder there is such emphasis upon the need to watch. If we are the generation which will see Christ's appearing, we will be the only people who never physically die. And we will be those who welcome the Lord Jesus to this earth, who stand ready to welcome Him. This is an honour higher than we probably appreciate. No wonder there is this pressing need in these last days to watch our doctrine, our way of life, to hold on to the great salvation which we have been given in prospect. 

18:9 And he spoke also this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt- The theme continues from the previous parable. There, the woman [representing us] prays for justice. "Justice" and "righteousness" are connected ideas in Hebrew and Greek thought. The woman wanted justice / righteousness; but she did not have it of herself. It had to be granted by a judge, and we are in relationship with the just judge, who alone gives justice / righteousness. Those who think they are righteous of themselves do not therefore fear God and they therefore despise men, just as the unjust judge did. The Pharisee who "treated others with contempt" therefore equates with the unjust judge of whom we have just read; and the woman desperately begging for justice is the tax collector begging for forgiveness, for rightness with God, who goes down to his house justified, with justice / righteousness, just as the widow went away with justice.

Paul alludes here when he says that the sentence of death we have within our bodies requires a bodily resurrection and transformation of the body far beyond our power to achieve; and therefore we cannot trust in ourselves, i.e. our own righteousness (2 Cor. 1:9). Rather must we cast ourselves upon God's grace.

The Lord was "despised", the same word here translated 'to treat with contempt' (23:11; Acts 4:11). Those despised by religionists are fellowshipping their Lord's sufferings; and the religionists by doing so are taking the side of His abusers.

18:10 Two men went into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector- Many of the parables feature two people; the self-righteous, and the serious sinner. One saved, the other lost. The parable of the older and younger sons in chapter 15 is a clear example. We have it again here. If we don't identify with the serious sinner- then we have to identify with the self-righteous.

18:11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus- AV "Prayed thus with himself". The OT idiom of prayer ‘returning into one’s own bosom’ is surely the quarry from which the Lord dug His image of a man praying with himself. It isn’t real prayer; it’s one part of the brain talking to a black box in another part of the brain, that we call ‘God’. We note how Luke especially records parables which focus upon the internal self talk of men; Luke introduces Jesus by recording that He would reveal the thoughts of many hearts (Lk. 2:35). For this is of such importance in the Lord's message of personal spirituality. The rich fool speaks within himself "What shall I do?" (indeed "I shall say to my soul, Soul, you have many goods stored up..."), the prodigal son and the unjust steward talk to themselves about their plans, the unjust judge talks to himself about what to do with the pesky widow, the owner of the vineyard talks to himself about sending his son, the unfaithful servant "shall say in his heart: My lord delays his coming" (Lk. 12:45). It is our self-talk which is clearly so significant to the Lord. The Gospel records themselves focus upon it- the Jews "said within themselves, This man blasphemes" (Mt. 9:3), they were warned not to "say within yourselves, We have Abraham..." (Mt. 3:9), the woman "Said within herself, If I may but touch..." (Mt. 9:21), the husbandmen said within themselves, This is the heir (Mt. 21:38 Gk.), in response to God saying within Himself "Surely they will reverence My Son", Simon the Pharisee says within himself that if Jesus were a true prophet, He would know the woman touching Him was a prostitute, Peter on release from prison says to himself "Now I know the Lord has sent His Angel..." (Acts 12:11), "Say not in your heart, Who shall ascend into heaven..." (Rom. 10:6). John's letters speak of the readership 'saying' things, and he surely means 'saying in your self-talk', that "we have fellowship with Him... we have no sin... we have not sinned" (1 Jn. 1:6,8,10)- because if we say we have not sinned, the word is not in us. If the word is in our hearts, our self talk within our hearts will not be like this. And this interest in human self-talk is reflected in the Old Testament too (e.g. Saul's self-talk about planning to make David be killed by the Philistines, 1 Sam. 18:17,21: "Saul thought, Don’t let my hand be against him, but let the hand of the Philistines be against him... Saul said, I will give her to him so that she can be a snare to him"). Once we appreciate this, it will not seem at all out of place to consider the narratives of the Lord's wilderness temptations as a window onto His self talk.

God, I thank you that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector- Luke uses the same term in recording how "the rest of men" would seek and find the Lord (Acts 15:17). Those despised as secular, non-religious and the hopeless sinners are the very ones whom the Lord came to save; rather than the self-righteous religionists. And these are the ones we should be reaching out to, rather than attempting to convert religionists from one flavour to another. The same word for "rest" has just been used in :9 for how the Pharisee despised "others". It means to put down, to set at nothing; and this is how the tax collector, and those in his category, are made to feel by the self-righteous. It's a big reason why secular folk who are searching for God won't attend church.

"Or even as" could as well be translated to the effect that "this tax collector" was the epitome of an extortioner, unjust and adulterer. And his deep penitence could suggest there might have been some truth in that accusation. But he, the "unjust", was the one who went away "justified" (:14). Luke was personal friends with Paul, and it could be argued that his Gospel record was preparation for Paul's later theological writings. The idea of the unjust being justified by faith through grace is exactly the theme of Paul in Romans and elsewhere.

The Lord elsewhere makes the point that the Pharisees were all that this Pharisee prided himself upon not being. They were extortioners (Mt. 23:25), unjust (Mt. 23:23) and adulterous (so the Lord implies in Mt. 12:39; 16:4; 19:3-9). We have an example of their adultery in Jn. 8:1-11. So we have here a classic case of transference. The Pharisee clearly thought the tax collector was guilty of the very things which he himself did. He had transferred his sins onto that man, and now openly condemns the man for those sins. This is often seen in religious life; people condemn others for what they themselves commit, because they have transfered their sins onto those other people. This goes on at the level of the deeply subconscious. The point is, we are to face up to our sins and confess them, as the tax collector does. We are thereby justified; in this way our sins are removed by the process of God's forgiveness, and by those sins being as it were placed upon the Lord on the cross. And not by our subconscious transferal of them onto others.

18:12 I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I get- Fasting was only required by the Law on the day of Atonement; and tithing was only of cattle and agricultural produce. Obedience to law, and even exceeding legal requirements, was not the basis for justification; for it is the hopeless sinner who goes away justified (:14); as noted on :11, Luke seems to be preparing the way for Paul's later expositions on justification of sinners by faith and not legal obedience. Fasting in Biblical terms was associated with shame and desperate pleading for forgiveness; the Pharisee fasted only in a ritual sense. It was the sinner who was accepted, without fasting. The point is that repentance cannot be ritualized. A blanket "And forgive me all my sins of this day" muttered each evening, is perhaps the dynamic equivalent of this ritualized fasting.

18:13 But the tax collector, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven, but struck his breast, saying: God, be merciful to me, the sinner- Ps. 51:1 “Have mercy on me, O God…” is quoted by the publican in Lk. 18:13. He felt that David’s prayer and situation was to be his. And he is held up as the example for each of us. In Romans 4, Paul quotes David's sin with Bathsheba as our pattern. We along with all the righteous ought to “shout for joy” that David really was forgiven (Ps. 32:11)- for there is such hope for us now. David is our example, and yet therefore the intensity of David’s repentance must be ours. He hung his head as one in whose mouth there were no more arguments, hoping only in the Lord’s grace (Ps. 38:14 RVmg.). Paul alludes here and sees this man as himself (1 Tim. 1:15,16). See on Lk. 23:48.

Usually men prayed with hands crossed over their chest. But men even at funerals don't usually beat upon their breast: "The remarkable feature of this particular gesture is the fact that it is characteristic of women, not men". The man was quite exceptionally upset and in grief- because of his sins. Beating his breast suggested a blow to his heart, as if confessing himself worthy of death. And personal recognition of private sin wasn't a big feature of first century life. The Lord's initial audience would've been amazed at the contrition and grief which this man had because of his secret sins; and this is the lesson for us. The times of prayer in the temple coincided with the offering of the daily sacrifices. The man asks for God to 'have mercy on me' (Lk. 18:13). But he uses a different word to that in Lk. 18:38, where the same translation commonly occurs. Hilastheti moi, he says; and the noun occurs only in Rom. 3:25; Heb. 9:5; 1 Jn. 2:2; 4:10 to describe the atonement sacrifice. It seems the man was so extraordinarily moved by his own sin and the sacrifice offered. No wonder the same phrase occurs in Lk. 23:48 about people likewise beating their breasts in repentance when they saw the actual sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

The humble man “smote his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me a sinner". “Be merciful" translates the word elsewhere translated “make propitiation", in describing the atoning death of Jesus on the cross (Heb. 2:17). The man’s sinfulness drove him to plead for the cross: ‘Please God, make a propitiation for me’ was his plea. He realized his need for the cross. And we should look back at the cross and feel and know the same need. . According to the Lord's own teaching, there are in some ways only two types of believer: either we are the self-righteous Pharisee, or the publican who beats his breast in self-loathing, hating his corrupt heart, begging for “mercy” [Gk. propitiation], confessing that he is the sinner (Lk. 18:13 Gk.). Paul, in one of his many allusions to the Gospels, reached the same height of contrition when he said, in total honesty, that he was “[the] chief of sinners" (1 Tim. 1:15,16).  James 4:9 tells some believers in the Jerusalem ecclesia that their joy ought to be turned to heaviness, implying the downcast look of the publican who could not so much as lift up his eyes to God. This man is held up by the Lord and James as some kind of hero and example to us.

The man who ‘humbled himself’ smote upon his breast in knowledge of his own sin and his Lord’s grace. The Greek phrase occurs elsewhere only once, again in Luke’s thought, in describing how those humbled by the vision of the cross beat upon their breasts (Lk. 23:48)- surely in recognition of their sin and contrition before the grace of God outpoured. In the cross, we see self-humbling that we might be exalted. And we respond by likewise humbling ourselves, that others may be exalted.

18:14 I say to you, this man went home rendered righteous rather than the other. For everyone that exalts himself shall be humbled, but he that humbles himself shall be exalted- This is alluded to in 2 Cor. 11:7. Paul told Corinth that he had abased himself so that they might be exalted, so that they could share the exaltation he would receive on account of his humility. In all this, of course, he reflected to his brethren the very essence of the attitude of the Lord Jesus for toward us. It was through refusing funding for his work from the Corinthians that he abased himself that they might be exalted- all language of the crucifixion (cp. Phil. 2:8,9). Thus his refusing of legitimate help to make his way easier was an enactment in himself of the cross. We live in a world which has made the fulfilment of personal aims of paramount importance. It has affected the fabric of every society, and become embedded in every mind. To live to serve, to put oneself down that others may rise… this is strange indeed. John the Baptist had this spirit, for he rejoiced that he decreased whilst the Lord’s cause increased. Paul likewise abased himself that others might be exalted, after the pattern of the cross. God’s gentleness, His humility / bowing down (Heb.) has made us great, lifted us up (Ps. 18:35). And we respond to it by humbling ourselves.

So we are taught here that he who humbles himself in prayer will be exalted. Paul perhaps had this in mind when he spoke of how the Lord Jesus on the cross humbled Himself that He might be exalted (Phil. 2). Real prayer is a humiliating experience, a true humbling of self after the pattern of the Lord’s crucifixion. We really need to ask ourselves whether this is anywhere near true of our prayer life.

"This man..." corresponds to how the Pharisee refers to the sinner as "this tax collector". "This..." person was a derogatory term. The older son speaks of "this son of yours" (Lk. 15:30);  the Jews mocked the Lord as being "this man receives sinners and eats with them" (Lk. 15:2). We have again 'the great reversal'. The one despised is the one justified.

 

There was a saying amongst the Jews that "whoever brought a sacrifice to the temple returned justified". The Talmud said that while the Temple stood, when every Israelite had offered sacrifice, ‘his sin was pardoned and he departed justified.’ This man is presented as bringing the sacrifice of a broken spirit and penitent heart. This is another connection between this man and David in his repentance concerning Bathsheba.

To come before "the throne of grace" is to come in essence before the judgment and before the cross of our Lord. Inevitably these things convict us of our desperation. The publican who beat upon his breast "went down to his house justified". Yet we were justified by the shedding of the blood of Christ (Rom. 5:9). That man's faith was consciously focused upon the Lord's sacrifice. We believe on Him who justifies us, through the blood of the cross (Rom. 4:5), and this faith is manifested through focusing upon the cross, and expressing it in prayer to be justified. The publican went home after prayer "justified rather than the other". It has been suggested that this reflects "a Semitic idiom which describes… an anticipation of his acquittal in the final judgment".

The language of justification ["rendered righteous"] as noted on :11 and :12 is preparing the way for Paul's inspired expansion of these ideas in Romans. "Went home" is Gk. 'went down to his house', just as in :9 the two men both "went up to the temple". But only one went back 'down' justified. This is typical of the 'great reversal' often developed by Luke; the sinners, the humble, are exalted and saved and the proud self righteous are demoted and revealed as sinners. And here, the "unjust" (:11) went home 'justified'. This parable began in :9 with the Greek connecting word "also", linking it with the previous parable- which has spoken of the unrighteous, unjust judge hearing the petitions of the widow. The hint is that the just judge will justify the sinner. The Pharisee proclaimed his own righteousness to himself, but God will proclaim the righteousness of those He justifies- to all. Lk. 16:15 has just spoken of the Pharisees as “those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your heart”. Again, it's the great reversal. The sinner is counted righteous, but by the just / righteous judge. This is Paul's great theme in Romans 1-8, that the unrighteous are counted righteous by a just and righteous process, without any moral short cuts, no get around, and without turning a blind eye to the sins of those on your team. The Pharisee and others "trusted" in their own righteousness (:9), just as the man in Lk. 11:22 trusted in his own armour but had it taken away; whereas justification is by faith / trust in God counting us as righteous. All because we are "in Christ". This makes sense of how the tax collector prayed "afar off" (:10). The Pharisee would have gone to pray in "the courts of the righteous" but the tax collector was far away from that. Yet the Pharisee sees him because he mentions the tax collector in his prayer to God. So the "afar off" was largely in the sinner's mind.

The two men went into the temple at the same time, suggesting it was a time of corporate worship when Jewish males entered the temple for prayer. It could have been the day of atonement; or the time when the daily "sacrifice of atonement", as it was called, was offered. The Pharisee commends himself for both fasting and tithing (:12), both of which were practiced on the day of Atonement. So like us in the presence of the symbols of the Lord's atonement, we can either consider ourselves righteous of ourselves; or be the smitten sinner who is justified at the end. Again we are left with the great reversal; humility is exalted, whereas in the first century world, humility was for losers and was something enforced upon a reluctant recipient. Whereas in the new spiritual world of the Lord Jesus, humility is to be aspired to, we are to humble ourselves, that we might be exalted in due time.

18:15 And they were bringing to him even their babies, that he should touch them- His blessing was and is mediated without physical contact. The need for physical contact in order to receive blessing was embedded in the religious mentality of the time, and is seen to this day in so many rituals and traditions of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The sick woman thought to herself that if she could only touch Jesus, she would be made whole; but He responded that He made her whole because of her faith (Mt. 9:21,22). He was gently correcting her mistaken understanding of the power of touch. And yet the Lord made a concession to this misunderstanding by indeed touching the children as requested.

The touching was understood as a form of blessing. The implication is that the Lord agrees to the request, blessing little ones for the sake of the efforts of third parties who bring them to Him (as in Mk. 2:5 and so often in the work of saving and curing men). As the children ‘received’ this blessing, so the Lord urges the disciples to ‘receive’ the things of the Kingdom- for Mk. 10:15 records the Lord’s further comment that “whoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no way enter into it”. Those children receiving His grace and blessing, all the more gracious because they received it thanks to others bringing them to it, represent each disciple who receives the grace and blessing of the Kingdom.

But when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them- Just as they had turned away the little one in Matthew 18, as they sought to send away the hungry crowds, forbad John’s disciples and tried to turn away the Syro-Phoenician woman. And they did this despite the Lord’s sober warning that turning away little ones is making them stumble, and will lead to eternal rejection from God’s Kingdom. The disciples in their preaching, of which the Gospels are transcripts, were stressing how they had so failed to grasp this vital teaching. 

18:16 But Jesus called them to him, saying: Permit the little children to come to me, and do not forbid them. For to such belongs the kingdom of God- The Lord rebuked the disciples for 'forbidding' John's disciples and the little ones to come to Him (Mk. 9:38); and yet He uses the same word to describe how the lawyers hindered [s.w. 'forbad'] people to enter the Kingdom. There's a very clear parallel here between the disciples and their Jewish teachers who had so influenced their thinking. But they finally got there- for Peter insisted that Gentiles should not be forbidden [s.w. 'hinder'] baptism (Acts 10:47); and he uses the same word again when he says that now, he will not "withstand [s.w. 'hinder'] God in hindering people to come to Him (Acts 11:17). The awfulness of the disciples' attitude is brought out by the use of the word in 1 Thess. 2:16, where Paul says that the way the Jews 'forbad' or hindered the preaching of the Gospel was cause for the wrath of God to come upon them "to the uppermost". And the disciples initially followed their Jewish elders in this kind of behaviour. In passing, there is a sober warning here to those who would likewise 'forbid' baptism to those who sincerely seek it, and who will not allow ‘little ones’ to the Lord’s table.

18:17 Truly I say to you, Whoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no way enter into it- ‘Be babes’ Peter later exhorted, ‘and grow as they do’ (1 Pet. 2:2). The same word occurs here in Lk. 18:15 in description of the “infants” whom Peter rebuked. The Lord’s response had been to tell Peter to be like them. And, having been humbled into learning something of a child’s teachableness, a babe’s desire for the sincere milk, Peter now asks others to learn the lesson. 

The idea of “receiving” is often used about people accepting the Gospel. The implication is that one can receive the Gospel of the Kingdom of God- and yet not enter it, because we didn’t receive it as a child. We didn’t accept that we are the ‘little ones’, accepting we know so little, and just marvelling at the special grace being shown us which we accept in awed wonder. The language of ‘entering the Kingdom’ is used both of our final entry into the Kingdom when Christ returns (Mt. 25:10,21; Jn. 3:5), and of our current entering the Kingdom. The rich man can enter the Kingdom right now if he sheds the load of his wealth (Mt. 19:23,24). The Scribes stopped and hindered those who were entering the Kingdom from entering, locking the door through which the Kingdom could now be entered, all because they chose not to enter themselves (Mt. 23:13; Lk. 11:52). So it’s a case of ‘Now but not yet’. We do now enter into God’s rest, and yet we are promised that we will enter that rest at Christ’s return (Heb. 4:1-11). The Lord had warned that our righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes, or we will likewise not enter the Kingdom (Mt. 5:20); but that righteousness is in accepting the blessing of righteousness as a little child; for without that we shall not enter the kingdom. Those who do the will of the Father will enter the Kingdom (Mt. 7:21)- and that will is to be as little children and accept gifts without seeking to justify ourselves or earn them.

 We will enter the Kingdom as shy children. It doesn't just mean that we must now be as little children, but more that we will enter the Kingdom as little children. For Jesus had just said that "of such is the Kingdom". Children unspoilt by the hardness of this world and this flesh… this is how we will be as we walk away from the judgment seat into the Kingdom. And we should live the Kingdom life now. See on Lk. 12:37.

The Lord perceived spiritual prompts in the ordinary things of every day life. He saw in those children the qualities of those who would be in His Kingdom. Those kids weren't 'spiritual' in themselves. They were just Palestinian kids with well meaning, superstitious mums who believed in the power of the touch of the holy man. Yet, the Lord explained, that was no reason to disregard them. They should be seen as reminders of spiritual qualities which should be in us all. And this was how He perceived everything in His daily round of life. He raised everything to an altogether higher level.

18:18 And a certain ruler asked him, saying: Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?- Mark adds that he came running to Him and kneeled before Him. The idea was: 'Give me a list of dos and don'ts, I'm game'. But the answer was ultimately: "Follow me" (:22)- 'don't worry about specifics, but have a spirit of life committed to following Me, bearing My cross'. For that is reward enough. Likewise Peter was interested in what the reward would be for having given things up for the Lord; and the final answer is really 'I'm going to die on the cross- please share that death with me' (Lk. 18:28-33 and parallels).

The man was clearly influenced by the Jewish idea that one supreme good deed could assure the doer of salvation. This was particularly popular amongst the zealots, who considered that suicidal attacks on the Romans could assure them of salvation; the same mentality is to be found in Islamic suicide bombers today. But in His typical manner, the Lord doesn’t address the misunderstanding but rather works with it. He ends up telling the man that if he sells all he has and gives to the poor, then he will have “treasure in Heaven” (:22). This, therefore, isn’t a global command to every Christian. It was designed especially for this young man who thought that just one great act of obedience would secure salvation. The Lord went along with this by giving him such an example; but added: “And come and follow Me”, thus gently correcting the idea that one great act is enough for salvation.  

Rom. 7:19 is Paul’s allusion here, where he laments that like the young man, the good that he would do [same Greek words "shall I do"] he finds himself unable to do because of the sin that dwells within him. But instead of walking away from the Lord as this man did, Paul threw himself upon the Lord’s grace. This zealous young man was also understood by Peter as representative of us all; for he clearly alludes to him in 1 Pet. 3:10,11: “He who would love life and see good days [cp. the young man wanting to “have eternal life”]… let him… do good” (same Greek words). 

Mk. 10:17 notes that he also asked what he must do to “inherit” eternal life, as if he considered eternity a right that he must receive if he does only one great deed. The disciples heard the Lord assuring His people that those who follow Him will “have eternal life”, enter the Kingdom, enter into life, etc. But having heard all that, Peter asked: “We have left all… what shall we have?” (Mt. 19:27). The irony of it all is tragic. They’d just been promised they would “have” eternal life. But that wasn’t enough. Their focus was very much on this life; what shall we have here and now? They couldn’t see very much beyond the present, past the curvature of their earth.  Ruth’s unnamed relative could have been her redeemer; but when he realized he would have to marry her and have children, and split up his fields into more strips so as to give those children an inheritance along with that of his existing children- he pulled out. He wouldn’t ‘mar his inheritance’. He saw ahead to his death, to the next generation. His horizon was 20 years at most. But Boaz who didn’t think like this established his spiritual inheritance eternally, and is therefore mentioned in the Lord’s genealogy. Whilst the short sighted man passed off the page of history anonymously; his name wasn’t preserved.

18:19 And Jesus said to him: Why do you call me good? None is good, save one- God!- The Greek may not mean that the Lord was implying ‘Only God is good- I am not good’. Translators have added a number of words to try to flesh out the meaning of the words. The sense could just as well be ‘None is as good as the one God’- and therefore, we should keep His commandments. In other words, the Lord is not so much saying that He Himself is not ‘good’ but rather refocusing the man’s direction away from Himself towards the Father. For the man had come running to Him asking what he should do in order to inherit or rightfully have eternal life. And the Lord is refocusing the man upon the Father and the Father’s commandments. The Lord may therefore have a rhetorical sense in His question ‘why do you call Me good?’. His sense would have been: ‘Why are you so keen to call me “good”, setting me on a level with God? Instead, focus on obeying God’s commandments and tackle your hardest challenge- to give away your wealth, and then follow Me in the itinerant life towards the cross’. The man’s overly high and unrealistic view of Jesus, as if He were God Himself, was really an excuse for his own refusal to face the challenge of living the Christian life. Every false doctrine has a psychological basis, and the idea that Jesus is God and the Trinity are no different. To accept Jesus as less than God, as totally human, is a far deeper challenge to our living than accepting Jesus as being God Himself. If Jesus was human, sharing our own flesh, in which there dwells no good thing (Rom. 7:18), and yet was able to be perfect- this lays down a huge challenge to each of us. It’s far less challenging to accept Jesus as God and therefore good and perfect by nature. This is why I suggest the Lord is probing why the man called Him “good”- and redirected him towards the need for keeping the commandments and living the committed life in practice. So we have here a passage of deep significance for discussions about the Trinity. The Lord cites the unity of God as meaning that He alone is ultimately ‘good’, and challenges the man who wanted to treat Him as God as to whether this was not just an excuse for not doing the hard work of following Him in practice.

18:20 You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Honour your father and mother- Harry Whittaker makes an interesting but not totally convincing case that the rich young man here was Barnabas and these commands were very relevant to him as a Levite- see Studies in the Gospels chapter 148. Paul's references to the Gospels suggests that he had carefully meditated upon the passages to which he consciously alludes. The fact and way in which he alludes rather than quotes verbatim reflects the fact he had thought through and absorbed the teaching of the passages rather than learning them parrot fashion. Here the Lord Jesus combines two quotations from the Law: Ex. 20:12-16 followed by Lev. 19:18. Paul, in a different context, to prove a different point, combines those same two passages, although separating them by a brief comment (Rom. 13:9). This surely indicates that he had meditated upon how his Lord was using the Law, and mastered it so that he could use it himself.

18:21 And he said: All these things have I observed from my youth- The record in Mt. 19:20 stresses the incongruity and inappropriacy of the young man’s self-righteousness: “The youth answered, all these have I kept from my youth up”. He was young- and he says that since a young man he had kept all the commands. Now the Lord doesn’t lecture him about self-righteousness, nor does He point out that the young man is way over rating his own spirituality and obedience. Instead, the Master focuses on the positive- as if to say ‘You are zealous for perfection? Great! So, sell what you have and give to the poor. Go on, rise up to the challenge!’.

18:22 And when Jesus heard it, he said to him: One thing you lack yet- Matthew records that this was in response to his question: "What do I still lack?". And Lk. 18:22 provides the Lord’s answer: “One thing you lack [s.w.]”, but the “one thing” was to distribute his wealth and to follow Christ. The two things seem therefore related; it was the wealth which was stopping the following of Christ. The man had come to the Lord asking what great deed he must do to obtain eternal life, and so he was aware of his obedience to the commandments. He obviously felt that obedience to Mosaic law was not going to be the basis of eternal life, and he sensed that there was some great deed he must yet achieve. Therefore “What do I still lack?” shouldn’t be read as an arrogant statement that he lacked nothing because he had been legally obedient. Rather is it a genuine question, seeking a concrete, clear and achievable answer.  

The Lord was quoting from the LXX of Ps. 23:1. Because the Lord [Jesus] is our shepherd, "not one thing is lacking to me". The selling and sharing of his wealth is paralleled by the Lord with following Him. The one thing that was lacking was to shed his wealth and follow Christ. To follow Christ, to have Him as our shepherd, is therefore no merely intellectual affair, nor is it a question of legalistic obedience to a set of principles we inherited from our youth. It requires the most painful sacrifices.

Sell all you have and distribute to the poor- Luke again uses the word in describing how the early believers did indeed sell their possessions and 'distribute' to the poor within the ecclesia (Acts 4:35).

And you shall have treasure in heaven- Alluded to in James 1:12. We note that the Lord treated each person differently. He approved Zacchaeus' distribution of only half of his possessions- whilst demanding that this rich young man give away literally all. And He never seems to have demanded that those of His followers who owned houses should sell them. The same principle is seen in His preceding teaching about divorce and remarriage- His ideal standard is not ‘given’ to everyone, just as it is not a requirement of everyone that they sell and they have and give to the poor. The Lord taught that we receive the Lord's goods [s.w. "what you have"] on conversion to Him (Mt. 25:14). We resign all, but receive all. By giving away our earthly wealth, we directly receive wealth in Heaven. Lk. 12:15,33,44 make a sustained play on this Greek word: "A man's life doesn't consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses [s.w.]... sell what you have [s.w.] and give alms... [the Lord] will make [such a man] ruler over all that he has [s.w.]". Whilst the specific command to the young man to sell all he had and give it to the poor was not in one sense universal, i.e. not a command to every believer, yet the spirit of it (according to Luke 12) is indeed to be followed by us all. We must at least "forsake ['to bid farewell to'] all that [we] have [s.w.]" (Lk. 14:33). The early believers did not 'say' that anything they possessed [s.w.] was their own (Acts 4:32)- Luke surely intends us to connect this with his earlier record of how the Lord had taught that our attitude, at very least, must be that we do not really 'own' those things which we apparently 'have'. 

And come follow me- See on Mk. 10:21; Lk. 10:42. In the first century, family and the family inheritance was everything. The way the Lord asked His followers to reject family and follow Him was far more radical than many of us can ever appreciate. Likewise His command to sell everything and follow Him implied so much- for the Middle Eastern family estate was the epitomy of all that a person had and stood for. And to be asked to give the proceeds of that inheritance to poor strangers... was just too much. It could seem, once one gets to know Middle Eastern values, that to abandon both family and the village home in favour of Jesus was just impossible- those things were more valuable to a Middle Eastern peasant than life itself. But still He asked- and people responded.

Consider the parallels between the Lord’s demand of the young man, and Peter’s comment (Lk. 18:22 cp. 28; Mk. 10:21 cp. 28): 

Peter seems to have subconsciously bypassed the thing about taking up the cross. But he was sure that he was really following the Lord. He blinded himself to the inevitable link between following Christ and self-crucifixion; for the path of the man Jesus lead to Golgotha. We have this same tendency, in that we can break bread week after week, read the records of the crucifixion at least eight times / year, and yet not let ourselves grasp the most basic message: that we as followers of this man must likewise follow in our self-sacrifice to that same end.

18:23 But when he heard these things, he became exceedingly sorrowful. For he was very rich- Again Luke's record of the early church alludes here, speaking of how possessions were sold and the money distributed to the poorer believers (Acts 2:45; 5:1 s.w.). Mk. 10:22 describes him as "sad", literally the Greek means that he became overcast, as the sky clouding over. His joy, therefore, was because he had wrongly assumed that he could do some simple dramatic act well within his comfort zone, and thus attain an assurance of salvation. But his face clouded over when he realized that he was being called outside of his comfort zone. This is an exact picture of the disillusion which clouds so many once they perceive that the call of Christ is not to a mere social club or to surface level religion. 

18:24 And Jesus looking at him, said: How hard it shall be for those that have riches to enter into the kingdom of God!- Mk. 10:24 speaks of the man who trusts in riches; the parallel Lk. 18:24 speaks of him who has riches. To have riches is, almost axiomatically, to trust in them. This is the nature of wealth 'possession'. For the man who has / trusts in riches, he must bow down like the camel wriggling through the small gate on its knees, having shed all its mountain of goods. This parable was given in the context of the Lord's straight statement: "He that humbles himself will be exalted" (Lk. 18:14 cp. 25). As the camel rose up from its knees the other side of the gate, so within the Kingdom's gates, those who have shed their trust in possessions will likewise be exalted.

The sense is not simply that it is hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom, but that he shall enter with difficulty. The Lord goes on to say that such shall enter the Kingdom only by God's grace and possibility of saving those who do not rise up to the higher levels that He bids us to (:27). In what, then, is the hardness or difficulty- if God is willing to accept our living on lower levels? The difficulty is in not walking away from Christ as the young man did, because of our pride; what is hard is to be like a child, the model throughout this entire discourse, and simply accept God's grace in Christ.

18:25 For it is easier for a camel to enter in through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God- The man walked away, whereas if he had cast himself upon the Lord's grace, or better still, sold what he had and given to the poor, then he could have right then begun to enter into the Kingdom. We begin entering the Kingdom right now; we are, according to another teaching, walking on the road to the judgment, and must get right with our brother who walks on the way there with us. The parable of the camel (i.e. the rich would-be believer) being unloaded of its wealth before it enters the city (Mt. 19:23,24) represents a rich man entering the Kingdom (the city = the Kingdom, as in Rev. 22:14; 21:2; Heb. 13:14; 11:16; a city can also represent believers). If he sheds his riches now, it follows he is then able in some sense to enter the Kingdom now. In these few words is our highest challenge in this age.  

In the beauty and depth of His simplicity, the Lord comprehended all this in some of the most powerful sentences of all time: It is very hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom. He must shed his riches, like the camel had to unload to pass through the needle gate. This is such a powerful lesson. And it's so simple. It doesn't need any great expositional gymnastics to understand it. Like me, you can probably remember a few things very vividly from your very early childhood. I remember my dear dad showing me this as a very young child, with a toy camel and a gate drawn on a piece of paper. And I saw the point, at four, five, maybe six. It is so clear. But what of our bank balances now, now we're old and brave? It's easier for a camel, the Lord said. Why? Surely because someone else unloads the camel, he (or she) has no say in it. But in the story, surely we must be the camel who unloads himself, who shakes it all off his humps, as an act of the will. And as we've seen, the spirit of all this applies to every one of us, including those without bank accounts.

Luke's writings bear the marks of a doctor writing; he uses exact medical terms. Luke's medical language is clearly seen in how he records the Lord's words about "passing through the eye of a needle". He uses the Greek medical term belone- a surgeon's needle. Matthew and Mark use the more domestic word raphis (Mt. 19:24; Mk. 10:25).

18:26 And they that heard it said: Then who can be saved?- They were really so shocked (Mt.) that wealth made it hard to enter the Kingdom, implying they were strongly persuaded that wealth was a gift from God and a sign of His approval of a man. This of course was quite foreign to the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and other teaching of the Lord, and so we see how far they had been from understanding His most basic teachings.

"Can be..." translates the same word the Lord uses in the next verse to say that with God, even the saving of the wealthy who don't quit their wealth is "possible"- on the basis, therefore, of His willingness to accept a lower standard of achievement to that He ideally requires.

18:27 But he said: The things which are impossible with men are possible with God- The status of para God is often applied to the Lord Jesus (Lk. 2:52; Jn. 6:46; 8:40; 16:27; Acts 2:33). The suggestion could be that because of the status of the Lord Jesus with the Father, such gracious salvation is possible which would be impossible if men simply had to have the steel will to obey the Father’s ideal principles.

The idea of possibility with God is lifted from the Septuagint of the word to Sarah about the birth of Isaac (Gen. 18:14). Those Old Testament heroes were not merely stained glass figures- our own belief in salvation regardless of wealth is as dramatic as the belief of an old woman that she could have a child. The context here, however, is talking of how those who choose a lower level- in this case, not selling their wealth and giving to the poor- can still be saved by God’s gracious possibility.

There are at least two instances in the Gospels where the Lord Jesus is quarrying his language from the book of Job, and shows a certain identification of himself with Job. Here the Lord explains the irrelevance of riches to the spiritual good of entering the Kingdom, saying that "with God all things are possible"- without money. This is almost quoting Job 42:2, where Job comes to the conclusion that all human strength is meaningless: "I know that You can do everything". It may be that Jesus is even implying that through the tribulation of his life he had come to the same conclusion as Job. See too Mt. 5:27-30.

18:28 And Peter said: We have left our own- See on Lk. 14:27. The family based structure of the first century is hard to fully empathize with from our distance. Family was all. Peter comments that the disciples had “left our own homes” (Lk. 18:28 RVmg.), and the parallel Mt. 19:27 says “left all”. Your home was your all. To have to leave it for the sake of Christ was the most fundamental thing you could do. Hence the real meaning in the first century of the Lord’s response that such converts would receive families in this life, i.e. in their relationships in the ecclesia. And yet the radical call of Christ is no less demanding and intrusive as men and women meet it today, the only difference being that the starkness of the choices is less pronounced today- but just as essentially real.

And followed you- Just as Peter’s claim to have “left all” was perhaps questionable, likewise Peter seems to have under-estimated what ‘following Christ’ really meant- for the idea of carrying the cross is strongly connected with following Christ (Mt. 10:38; 16:24). And Peter failed to carry that cross to the end, for he denied the Lord when the going got tough.

18:29 And he said to them: Truly I say to you- This is in response to Peter's claim that they had "left all and followed You" (Mt. 19:27). The Lord doesn't comment upon Peter's claim. This may well have been because He knew that Peter had not in fact "left all" to the degree that Peter thought he had. They hadn’t then grasped the idea of what really following involved; they hadn’t in one way or another laid down their lives with Christ. The Lord was so generous spirited towards His disciples. He knew that Peter would not follow Him as planned, to the cross- indeed, none of them would (Jn. 13:36,37), but He speaks to them as if they would be successful ultimately in following Him.

There is no one that has left house, or wife, or brothers, or parents, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake- See on Acts 8:12. This list of things to be forsaken, with Matthew adding houses and lands, recalls the language of the Levites forsaking these things in order to serve God (Ex. 32:26-29; Dt. 33:8-10). The secular disciples again are encouraged to see themselves as the Levites of the new Israel the Lord was creating. And note that the Lord speaks of how His followers will each have left mother, brother etc. to serve Him, referring to how Moses blessed Levi for forsaking these very things so as to God's service (Dt. 33:9). And there is no Christian who has heart and soul committed themselves to the Gospel's work, either in the world or amongst their brethren, who has not lived to see the truth of this definition of priesthood.

"For My Name’s sake" is parallel with “The kingdom of God’s sake” (Mt. 19:29). The things of the Name and the things of the Kingdom were therefore not two different things, rather were they different ways of referring to the same realities.

18:30 Who shall not receive many times more in this time-  See on Mt. 10:27 for the allusion to Job. The Lord’s prophecy that the believer receives fathers, mothers, houses, lands etc. only has its fulfillment insofar as the ecclesia is willing to share these things and relationships with its members. But the condition of the fulfillment was not explicitly stated. We forsake all human relationships to follow the Lord Jesus (Mt. 19:27-29). And He promises to compensate for this even in this life. But it depends to what extent we are willing to accept and perceive it. Through meaningful fellowship with our brethren we will find those relationships which we have given up compensated for, even if we aren’t physically close to our brethren. In reference to Israel’s deliverance from Egypt we read: “God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains” (Ps. 68:6). To be set in a new family is paralleled with being brought out from slavery. Part of the process of our redemption is that we are set in a new ecclesial family. This must be a reference to how Israel were brought out on Passover night, where the families and lonely ones had to join together into households big enough to kill a lamb for. The implication of Ps. 68 could be that it was in these family groups that they travelled through the wilderness. The N.C.V. reads: “God is in his holy Temple. He is a father to orphans, and he defends the widows. God gives the lonely a home. He leads prisoners out with joy...”. The very house / family of God becomes the house / family of the lonely. Hence the ecclesia is the house of God (1 Cor. 3:16). We find true family in the new family of God. By baptism we are “added together” with those others who are likewise saved in Christ (Acts 2:47 RVmg.). We will live together eternally with the other members of this new body and community which we enter. The links between us within that new family are even stronger than those with our natural family; and hence any division amongst the family of God is the greatest tragedy. What this means in practice is that we must fellowship each other. Even if we are isolated from other believers, one can always write letters, make phone calls, invite others to visit them, attempt to meet others…

And in the age to come, eternal life- These are the very words of the rich young man earlier in the chapter. The answer to that man’s question was that we have to lose now, if we are to win eternally; we must forsake material things if we are to inherit the life eternal. As he was only a young man, it’s likely that his wealth had been inherited. He was being told that the greatest inheritance was of life eternal, but this didn’t come easily nor by good luck or circumstance, but in response to a lifetime of following Jesus. The things which were to be forsaken include [putting the records in Mark and Luke together with Matthew]: family, brothers, sisters, father, mother, lands, houses etc. These were all the things which the young man had received by inheritance, and to forsake association with his family, on behalf of whom he had received his wealth, would’ve been crazy and social suicide. It was as crazy as trashing a winning lottery ticket and walking away the same you were before you bought it. But this is the radical calling of those who must forsake materialism in order to inherit eternity. Therefore all seeking for material advantage in this life is surely inappropriate if in fact we are to forsake it even if it comes to us without our seeking it.

18:31 And he took aside the twelve- The implication is that there were others travelling with them, and the Lord wished to explain the reality of the cross to the disciples alone.

And said to them: We will go up to Jerusalem, and all the things that are written through the prophets about the Son of Man shall be accomplished- Mark adds: “And Jesus went before them, and they were amazed; and as they followed they were sore afraid”. They went “up”, uphill to Jerusalem. These small details all support the position that the Gospels were written by eye witnesses and were not created many years later by people who were not present. They were going the opposite direction of man in the parable of the Good Samaritan, who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. We may be able to infer that the Lord intended us to read that man as one who was not going in the way of the cross, who was going away from Jerusalem rather than towards it- and who was still saved by the grace of the Samaritan / Jesus. 

18:32 For he shall be delivered up to the Gentiles, and shall be mocked and shamefully treated, and spat upon- See on 1 Thess. 2:2. As noted on :15, this refers to the judgments upon Israel in Is. 50:2,6. The Greek for "delivered up" means literally ‘to hand over’; the idea of betrayal was maybe implicit, but not as explicit as in the English word ‘betrayed’. The word is very common on the lips of the Lord, as if He saw the moment of ‘handing over’ as the quintessence of all His sufferings- the hand over from God’s providential protection to the powers of darkness. He has just spoken of how the Pharisee treated the tax collector shamefully, and the unjust judge had no shame in shaming those who needed justice. The Lord is asking them to see that He is the one identified with those weak, marginalized, sinful people; and will suffer at the hands of those in secular power just as they had done.

18:33 And they shall scourge and kill him, and on the third day he shall rise again- The scourging alludes to the punishments upon Israel in Josh. 22:13. Indeed so many of the judgments on Israel were experienced by Jesus on the Cross:

Hos. 2:3,6 = Mt. 27:27-29; Jn. 19:28
Josh. 22:13 = Lk. 18:33
Ps. 89:30-32; Is. 28:18 = Mt. 27:30
Ez. 22:1-5 = Jesus mocked by Gentile Roman soldiers, Mt. 27:27-31
Is. 50:2,6 = Mt. 26:67; 27:30; Lk. 18:32
Jer. 18:16 = Mt. 27:39
These similarities are too close to have been engineered humanly; if it is accepted that Jesus was crucified, it does not seem unreasonable to accept that the sufferings of Jesus described in the New Testament really did happen. It therefore follows that Jesus of Nazareth did bear the sin and judgments of Israel, and therefore He is their saviour-Messiah. Judaism struggles with this observation.

The Lord's detailed knowledge of His sufferings could have been beamed into Him, or He could have worked some of it out from Old Testament types and prophecies. But it seems to me that because He gave His life of Himself, it was not taken from Him by the machinations of others, He therefore arranged the entire scenario so that these things would happen.

18:34 And they understood none of these things, and this saying was hid from them, and they did not understand the things that were said- See on Lk. 9:45. Luke earlier notes that the saying about the cross was “hidden” from them (Lk. 9:45), in confirmation of their own refusal to understand it because it demanded that they too suffer with their Lord. And yet in prayer to the Father, He rejoices that these things are not hidden from them (Lk. 10:21,23). This gives insight into the Lord’s present mediation for us in prayer- speaking of us as far better than we are. The message of Christ crucified was “hid” from them (Lk. 9:45; 18:34)- and Paul surely alludes to this when he says that this message is hid by the veil of Judaism from those who are lost (2 Cor. 4:3). Matthew adds that there arose a controversy as to who should be the leaders in the new community; and when the Lord earlier explained His passion, Luke also adds that straight afterwards, “there arose a dispute among them, which of them was the greatest” (Lk. 9:46). Time and again we see this in the Gospels- when the Lord speaks of His upcoming death, the disciples change the subject. This explains our own problem with mind wandering at the breaking of bread or in the study or even reading of the crucifixion accounts. This difficulty on focusing upon Him there is likely because His death requires our death and suffering, and subconsciously we realize that- and would rather not.

18:35 And it came to pass, as he drew near to Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the way side begging- Matthew's account of the healing of the two blind men as they left Jericho must be compared with the healing of Bartimaeus as He left Jericho (Mk. 10:46), and now the healing of a blind man as He approached Jericho (Lk. 18:35). These accounts are not in contradiction. One of the two blind men was Bartimaeus, and he is the one Mark focuses on. The healing of the first blind man is indeed described in the same terms as the healing of the other blind men, but the similarity of the language is in order to demonstrate how the Lord worked in the same way in different lives at slightly different times. And there are other examples of incidents repeating in Biblical history but being described in similar language. We are left with an abiding impression that what happens in our lives has been in essence repeated in other lives. And surely the healing of the first blind man inspired the others to take the same leap of faith, just as we are to be inspired by the way others have responded to the Lord's hand in their lives.

If indeed there are major bloomers in the Gospels and in the Bible generally [as the critics suggest regarding these incidents of healing the blind men], then naturally the question arises as to how reliable the Biblical text really is. Liberal Christians tend to argue that some is, other parts aren't. But no basis is given for deciding which parts are reliable and which are not. Nor does there seem any reason why God would inspire some parts of the Bible but not others. But the wonder is that the Bible, and the Gospels particularly, can be analyzed at depth and found not to contradict but rather to dovetail seamlessly in a way in which no human piece of writing ever could. This is particularly seen in the four Gospels, and it is this seamlessness and lack of contradiction which led sceptics like Frank Morrison in Who Moved the Stone? to become committed believers in the bodily resurrection of Christ. In musical terms, the whole united record reads as a symphony. There is no need to remove one note from it, or a few notes here and there. The overall wonder is lost by doing so, to the point that it is a desecration of the Divine product. If there are passages which we cannot reconcile, the way of humility is surely to accept that we are still waiting for more insight and understanding- rather than arrogantly insisting that Divine inspiration somehow faltered at that point. 

18:36 And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant- The idea is not 'What ever is going on?' but rather is he enquiring of the significance of all this. There is a similar incident in Mt. 21:10,11, where part of the crowd ask: "Who is this?", and the other part answer back: "This is Jesus the prophet". They were trying to echo Ps. 24:8,10: "Who is this king of glory?" is answered by "The Lord strong and mighty". This was understood as how the crowds were to call to each other in the Messianic procession. Perhaps this man was attempting to have a part in what he believed to be a Messianic event; in this case, he would have accepted that the Lord was Messiah. He was inspired by previous healings of blind men in Mt. 9:27, who would have surely spread the message that they considered their healer to be Jesus the Messiah.

18:37 And they told him, that Jesus of Nazareth passes by- As noted on :36, this could be understood as their participation in some Messianic procession, whereby one shouted "Who is this?" and the answer was then given. This would explain why the man addresses Him as "Son of David", a title associated with Messiah's enthronement.

18:38 And he cried, saying: Jesus, you son of David, have mercy on me!- These were exactly the words of the two blind men of Mt. 9:27, who were likewise cured by the Lord on the outskirts a town, just as here the cure happened as He approached Jericho. They are also similar words to the healing of the blind men recorded after the Lord leaves Jericho. The similarity and connection is obvious. From God's side, we see how He works according to pattern in the lives of people. And humanly, the blind man had somehow passed on to other blind men the truth that there was mercy / grace in the Son of David, which could be manifested in the restoration of sight. In this lies the significance of the fact that according to Matthew and Mark, other blind men said exactly these words and made exactly this request as the Lord departed from Jericho. Far from being [as supposed by the critics] a jumbling up of material by uninspired writers, we see rather the development of a theme- that blind men at various places and times approached the Lord with the same words, and made the same connection between His mercy and Him being the Son of David. They may simply have thought that as the Son of David, He had the characteristics of David- which included remarkable mercy and grace to his enemies. We also see how once a community is broken into with the Gospel, it spreads within that community, expressed in the words and concepts which that community understands, and in the style which originated with the first ones in the community who accepted the Gospel. I have seen this happen in communities of the deaf, Gypsies, HIV patients, ethnic minorities under persecution, language groups etc. And so it happened amongst the blind beggar community in Palestine. Such communities have amazing links to each other and paths of communication.  

The connection between "the son of David" and "mercy" is surely rooted in the description of the promises to David as "the mercies [chesed] of David" (Is. 55:3; Acts 13:34; 1 Kings 3:6; 2 Chron. 1:8; Ps. 89:49 "The mercies which You promised unto David"; Is. 16:5 "In mercy shall the throne be established... in the tent of David"). These promises were utter grace; "mercy" translates chesed , which is about the closest the OT comes to the NT concept of grace. David rejoiced in this chesed / mercy shown to him (2 Sam. 22:51; 2 Chron. 7:6; Ps. 101:1). Solomon pleaded for grace on the basis of the fact that God had shown such covenant mercies to David (2 Chron. 6:42 "Remember the mercies of David"). The mercies of David surely also refer to God's mercy, the mercy of grace, shown to David in forgiving him the sin with Bathsheba and Uriah- he begged for forgiveness on the basis of God's "tender mercies" (Ps. 51:1). It could be argued that David's forgiveness was on account of his pleading for the mercies shown to him in the Davidic covenant to be continued to him. For in that covenant God had promised that chesed would not depart from David (2 Sam. 7:15), and David therefore begs for forgiveness on the basis that grace / chesed would indeed not be withdrawn from him (Ps. 51:1). From all this, David pleaded in crisis towards the end of his life to fall into God's hands because "His mercies are great" (2 Sam. 24:14). In response to the chesed ["mercy", or grace] shown David, he too was characterized by humanly senseless chesed to his enemies in the family of Saul (s.w. 1 Sam. 20:15; 2 Sam. 2:5 "you have shewed this kindness / chesed unto Saul"; 2 Sam. 3:8; 9:1,7) and to Hanun his Ammonite enemy (2 Sam. 10:2 "I will shew kindness / chesed unto the Hanun"). What is so impressive is that the network of blind men, from Galilee to Jericho, had figured this out, or at least part of it. They saw the connection between grace and David, and were inspired to throw themselves upon the grace of David's Messianic Son. There was in those times [as there is in much of the world today] a deep belief that blindness was the direct result of sin (Jn. 9:2). These blind men almost certainly felt that their blindness was a result of their sin, and so they felt a moral need for forgiveness, so that the blindness would be lifted. According to Mk. 10:46, one of the blind men was called Bartimaeus, literally 'Son of the unclean'- doubtless this was what he had been dubbed by others, for no Hebrew mother would have named her son that. And they believed that Jesus could indeed cleanse them, morally forgive them, and thereby restore their sight. This would explain why they screamed [Gk.] "Have mercy on us!". This was a moral request; they didn't simply call out for healing.

18:39 And those who led the way rebuked him- This is yet another example of where the Lord is presented as eager to accept, when men [including disciples] are more eager to reject. The same word has just been used for how the disciples rebuked the little ones from coming to the Lord- and were in turn rebuked. The impression is that in the disciples' exclusivity, they weren't being [as they supposed] more spiritual than the world around them, but rather were they being simply as that world. Soon afterwards, the Pharisees told the Lord to "rebuke" His disciples, and He replied that it was impossible for them to "hold their peace" (Lk. 19:39,40). These are all words and phrases taken from this incident. Now it is the disciples who refuse to be quiet, and it is the Pharisees who want them to be quiet. Again the point is made that the desire to silence and exclude others is from the world, and not of Christ. The Lord's acceptance of people is consistently painted by the Gospels as being far more inclusive and extensive than that of men. The human tendency to reject and erect barriers is simply not there in Christ.

Saying that he should be quiet; but he cried out all the more: You son of David, have mercy on me!- This could be seen as the result of the Lord's piquing their sense of urgency for Christ by not responding immediately. This is also a factor in some of His delayed responses to our own  needs.

18:40 And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him; and when he came near, he asked him- The Lord could have walked up to the man as He did to others when curing them. But on this occasion He wished to teach that His calling of men to Him for healing often uses a human mechanism. The "call" comes through people bringing others to the Lord. The Lord "calls" just as the people "called" the man. The Lord's calling and our calling of men are thereby paralleled. The experience of being called by the Lord is not to be seen as an onerous call to responsibility before Him; rather is it the source of "courage". His calling is because He wants to do something good for us, rather than saddle us with the weight of responsibility to judgment.

18:41 What do you want me to do for you? And he said: Lord, that I may receive my sight- The Lord had a way of focusing men upon their need. Thus He would have passed by the desperate disciples as they struggled in the storm, He would have gone further on the road to Emmaus, and He later asked the blind men the obvious question: “What will you that I shall do unto you?” (Mt. 20:32). He only partially cured another blind man, to focus that man’s mind on the faith that was needed for the second and final stage of the cure (Mk. 8:23-25). He elicited from the father of the epileptic child the miserable childhood story of the boy- not that the Lord needed to know it, but to concentrate the man on his need for the Lord’s intervention (Mk. 9:21). He wanted them to focus on their need: in this case, for sight. He let Peter start to sink, and only then, when Peter’s whole heart and soul were focused on the Lord, did He stretch forth His hand. The Lord deliberately delayed going to see Lazarus until he was dead and buried; to elicit within His followers the acuteness of their need. And was He really sleeping in the boat with the storm all around Him? Was He not waiting there for them to finally quit their human efforts and come running to Him with faith in no other (Mk. 4:38,39)? Only when men were thus focused on their desperate need for the Lord would He answer them. The Lord further focused men’s need when he asked the lame man: “Do you want to be made whole?” (Jn. 5:6). Of course the man wanted healing. But the Lord first of all focused his desire for it.

The one thing he wanted was to see. The healed blind man is a type of us. True understanding (seeing) should be the one thing we want. "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom" Prov. 4:7). This was obviously a rhetorical question, and it succeeded in the intention of making the men verbalize their dominant desire. Likewise the Lord works with us to make us focus and understand what is our dominant desire- and then seeks to reposition that focus. In this section He has done that by placing all human desires and requests in the shadow of His death for us. For how could we want anything 'extra' after He has done that for us, with all it enabled.

18:42 And Jesus said to him: Receive your sight; your faith has made you whole- The Greek term for "receive your sight" is literally 'look up', and is the word used for how the Lord had a habit of praying to God with open, uplifted eyes. There is surely the hint that the gift of sight was to encourage the man in his relationship with God, and likewise "whole" suggests that the man as a person was now "whole". The miracle was a gift of spiritual things as well as literal sight; which is why the man now follows the Lord (:43). The 'gift of heavenly health' is by grace; the Lord is eager to act directly upon willing hearts to give us the spiritual energy to follow Him.

18:43 And immediately he received his sight, and followed him, glorifying God; and when all the people saw it, they gave praise to God- As the Lord left Jericho, two other blind men were healed and they too followed the Lord in the way (Mk. 10:52). So surely they had heard of His healing power from the testimony of this blind man who followed Him throughout Jericho and then out the other side. We notice that he witnessed to blind men; we most powerfully take the gospel to those in our situation, and not to those in far off lands of other cultures. This is to be done; but witness is essentially personal and is to those of our own background and experience. And even before meeting those blind men, this man's praise of God influenced "all the people" to do likewise.