Bible Commentaries
Luke 21

Verses 1-4

24 Two kinds of coins were in circulation, the Roman and the Jewish. The temple taxes had to be paid in the Jewish shekel, the Roman in the foreign currency. The fact that they had accepted the conqueror's money shows that they regarded themselves as his subjects. Indeed, not long after this they insisted that they had no king but Caesar. To pay taxes, therefore, was only the fulfillment of an obligation they had already undertaken. Hence, instead of branding Him with sedition, as they hoped, He fastens on them the disgrace of national servitude. And, to emphasize the divine obligations, He insists on their paying the shekel of the sanctuary, which they doubtless did in fact but not in spirit. Our attitude toward rulers is set forth in Rom_13:1-7 . We look at the civil authorities as but a part of the sovereign supervising government of God, even though they are oblivious of Him or actually opposed to Him.

27-36 Compare Mat_22:28-30 ; Mar_12:18-25 .

27 Compare Act_23:6-8 .

27 The law made extraordinary provision for the perpetuation of the name and family of an Israelite. Should he die without issue, it was the duty of his brother to marry his widow and the son of such a union would take his name, so that it would not be blotted out ( Deu_25:5-6 ). The Sadducees seize on this custom to formulate a difficulty which was evidently a stock argument in their encounters with the Pharisees. It is evident that they had a most superficial understanding of the law and paid no attention to the underlying reason for its enactments. The law in question was necessitated by the disturbing element of death. Apart from this it has no place. In the resurrection of the just, where there is no more death, it can have no application. Marriage, similarly, has no place in the resurrection, so the question really revealed the ignorance of the Sadducees, rather than their fancied acuteness.

28 Compare Deu_25:5 .

37 Compare Mat_22:31-32 ; Mar_12:26-27 ; Exo_3:6 .

37 The real issue is now taken up by the Lord. They denied the resurrection. They appealed to Moses, so He also uses Moses as the basis of His argument. The God of Abraham is preeminently the God of promises and covenants. These have not been fulfilled and cannot be carried out if Abraham is not roused from the dead. All the virtue of the title "the God of Abraham" is lost if we consider it merely in connection with the past life of the patriarch. He did not receive the promises. It demands that he shall be raised from the dead.

38 There is no question here of the death state. Abraham is not living now. It is only in a secondary sense that all are living to God. He deals with His creatures in life, not in death. The Lord is not seeking to prove that death is life, but that there is a life after death in resurrection.

39-44 Compare Mat_22:23-46 ; Mar_12:28-37 .

41 He has brought them to a point where they no longer dare to question Him, so now He turns to question them. He goes straight to the heart of the whole situation. Often had He been hailed as the Son of David, and He always acknowledged this evidence of faith in Him. But how few, even among His disciples, knew Him as David's Lord! That this Lord, Who was in the form of God, should empty Himself and be found in fashion as a Man ( Php_2:5-8 ) , was a truth so utterly beyond their comprehension that He did not even stop for an answer. The

Hebrew scriptures use the titles "Lord", "God", etc. of the Image of God as freely as of absolute Deity. There are two Personalities Who bear these divine appellations, nor need we often be concerned which One is uppermost in any passage, for They are one, as the Image is one with Him Whom It represents. The lowly Man of the evangelists is the divine Lord of the prophets.

42 Compare Psa_110:1 .

45-47 Compare Mat_23:1-7 ; Mat_23:14 ; Mar_12:38-40 .

1-4 Compare Mar_12:41-44 .

3 Compare 2Co_8:12 .

1 God values a gift according to the sacrifices of the giver. Its commercial value means little to Him, Who owns all things, and Who accepts nothing except as a token of esteem. The rich seldom labor for a living, hence their offerings, unless very great, can mean little to them or to God. But such a drudge as this widow, who had nothing except the pittance she could earn, was at a great advantage. However little she might give, it would be great in God's eyes. And if she should give all, as this dear woman did, she would actually bring greater wealth to God than the combined total or all the large oblations. No one lacks the means to give much to God.

Verses 5-31

8-7 Compare Mat_24:1-3 ; Mar_13:1-4 ; Mic_3:12 .

6 The present interval being an absolute secret, we must banish it from our view entirely when considering the prophetic forecast here given. It is contained in the "eras of the nations" (24) but the vision of the future is as though we were looking at two mountain ranges, one before the other, which look like one, and hide the valley that lies between. We see here the turbulent times of the Jewish wars, the destruction of the temple at the siege of Jerusalem, the dispersion-all long past-and then find ourselves in the future terrors of the sixth seal, and the coming of the Son of Mankind.

8-11 Compare Mat_24:4-8 ; Mar_13:5-8 .

8 It is said that more than sixty different ones have come with messianic claims and the greatest of them is still to come at the time of the end. The rider on the white horse, under the first seal of the sixth chapter of the Unveiling, will be the false messiah of the end time.

10-11 The second seal ( Rev_6:3-4 ) takes peace from the earth. It corresponds with the conflict of nation with nation and seems to indicate a world war with universal conscription, whole nations hurling themselves at one another rather than merely sending small contingents of fighting men. Famine is indicated by the black horse with the balances ( Rev_6:5-6 ). A day's labor will barely buy one day's food. The fourth seal, with its sallow greenish horse ( Rev_6:7-8 ) corresponds with the pestilences here predicted.

12-19 Compare Mat_24:9-14 ; Mar_13:9-13 .

12 From verses twelve to twenty-five we have an outline of the siege of Jerusalem, the dispersion among the nations, the occupation of the holy city, and the persecutions which will be endured before the time of the end. We should remember that the perspective here and in all similar prophecies is such that the great affliction which is yet to come appears to follow soon after the dispersion. The present interval is practically ignored.

20 The siege of Jerusalem under Titus was one of the most terrible of all time. After the city was once invested, the opportunity for escape was cut off, and many who attempted it were slain. Thousands were crucified and many deserters were disemboweled because of a rumor that they sought to conceal their money by swallowing it. Others over-ate and burst asunder. More than a million perished miserably and nearly a hundred thousand were enslaved and carried off to Egypt and elsewhere. The city was almost completely demolished. It is said that the Christians in the city took warning and fled to the mountains of Judea in time to escape the terrible affliction.

24 Jerusalem has been in the hands of alien nations ever since. Even the crusades did not restore it to the Jews. Its change from Turkish rule to British sovereignty is a most favorable sign, but by no means gives the city back to the holy nation. It is still trodden (not trodden down , as usually misquoted) by a foreign power. This may be the last era of the nations, but it is not yet the end of "the times of the gentiles".

25-27 Compare Mat_24:29-31 .

25 The end of the eras or the nations will be accomplished by marvelous indications of divine intervention. This is brought before us under the sixth seal ( Rev_6:12-17 ) of the Unveiling. The sun becomes black as sackcloth of hair and the moon as blood, and the stars of heaven fall to the earth. It is the time of divine indignation and only those in Israel who are preserved by divine power will be able to stand. The hundred and forty-four thousand will be sealed and saved through this great affliction as well as the innumerable throng ( Rev_7:2-17 ). Portents which perplex and appal mankind will presage their deliverance.

29-33 Compare Mat_24:32-35 ; Mar_13:28-31 .

29 The fig tree pictures Israel politically. Like that one which the Lord cursed, the nation in this aspect withered away and has had no political status until recent years. When their right to a home in Palestine was acknowledged, and they became the subject of international diplomacy, it became necessary to recognize them as a nation. Zionism has kindled their national aspirations and was a token that the branches of the fig tree were preparing to bud. The British declaration giving them a home in Palestine, and their efforts to reclaim and repopulate the land of their forefathers, are sure indications that Israel's winter is nearly past and her summer is near.

Verses 32-38

32 It is evident that all these things did not take place in that generation. Nor did the Lord say that they would. He simply said that they should . He could not at that time reveal to them the failure of the Pentecostal economy. The present grace was an absolute secret. These must be left out of this prophecy. Leaving these out, all these things would have taken place in a single generation. Peter, at Pentecost, shows that repentance of the nation alone stood between them and the day of the Lord. Had the nation received his message, the times of refreshing would have come ( Act_3:19 ). This passage, instead of being an insoluble difficulty, is really the key to the proper apprehension of this whole prophecy. It shows that the whole is viewed as an immediate possibility, and does not include the Pentecostal or the present economy in its scope.

1-2 Compare Mat_26:1-5 ; Mar_14:1-2 .

1 In our Lord's day the popular names of the sacred festivals were not used with the clear exactitude of the Hebrew Scriptures. There the Passover is used of the day before the festival of Unleavened Bread, not of the festival itself. The passover was not sacrificed in the festival ( Lev_23:5-8 ). As one followed immediately after the other they seem to have been combined. It was practically necessary to put away leaven on the Passover, so it was included in the days of unleavened bread. Then, as the passover was sacrificed on this day, the whole festival, which lasted seven more days, was popularly known as the Passover.

3-6 Compare Mat_26:14-16 ; Mar_14:10-11 .

8 Is is evident that Judas, of his own volition, would not have betrayed his Lord. It was only when actually obsessed by Satan that he does such a dastardly deed. This fact must greatly modify our judgment of him. It is a question whether any of His disciples' or even of His apostles, could have done otherwise when under the control of the Adversary.

7-13 Compare Mat_26:17-19 ; Mar_14:12-16 .

7 "The day of unleavened bread" here refers to the day before the first day of the festival, the fourteenth of Nisan, on which the Passover lamb was sacrificed. According to the law the festival proper did not commence until the fifteenth of Nisan ( Num_28:16 ; Num_28:11 ).

8 According to Josephus, the passover was always eaten by a company of not less than ten, and often by twenty or more. It seems that, in this case, the apostles had made no preparations until the very day had come. But this Passover had been before Him for a long time, and He had put it into the heart of someone to provide the place, possibly without any clear knowledge of the object of the preparations.

10 Carrying water jars was "women's work", seldom done by a man. So that a man bearing a jar of water was an unmistakable sign. Possibly he was the only one in the whole city who demeaned himself thus.

14-18 Compare Mat_26:20-29 ; Mar_14:11-25 .

15 Even to His apostles this last Passover must have seemed exceedingly solemn, but what shall we say of His feelings, knowing as He did that He, as the great Antitype, must suffer before the day is done? Well did He know that He was the true Lamb, and that His previous ministry was but the prelude and preparation for His sacrificial death. Just as the Passover lamb was taken on the tenth day of the month and kept till the fourteenth ( Exo_12:3-6 ) , so He had been chosen by John the baptist ( Joh_1:29 ) for the day which was now at hand. The lamb for the Passover must be perfect, without blemish ( Exo_12:5 ). His holy life of peerless perfection, pure, though in constant contact with sin, was without parallel in the annals of mankind. All who sought to find a flaw in Him were confounded. The Passover was about to be fulfilled by His decease. Hence, in the midst of this final celebration, He introduces anew memorial of His death. The Passover was kept not only in remembrance of the exodus out of Egypt, but also as a type of the greater deliverance which comes through His sacrifice. But the new observance is based on an accomplished work, onvsuffering endured, on redemption attained. In its kingdom aspect it was given to remind them of His sufferings, during the interval of His absence. A special revelation of this observance was given to the apostle Paul, who passes it on to the Corinthians. Hence this account, as well as those in Matthew and Mark, are intended for the Circumcision only.