Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Luke 22:44

Clarke's Commentary

Verse 44. Prayed more earnestly — With greater emphasis and earnestness than usual, with strong crying and tears, Hebrews 5:7; the reason given for which is, that he was in an agony. Kypke well observes, Vox αγωνια summum animi angorem et dolorem indicat; et idem est, quod αδημονειν, Matthew 26:37; Mark 14:34. "The word αγωνια (agony) points out the utmost anguish and grief of soul, and is of the same import with αδημονειν in Matthew and Mark." Matthew 26:37; Matthew 26:37.

Drops of blood — Matthew 26:38; Matthew 26:38. Some have thought that the meaning of the words is, that the sweat was so profuse that every drop was as large as a drop of blood, not that the sweat was blood itself: but this does not appear likely. There have been cases in which persons in a debilitated state of body, or through horror of soul, have had their sweat tinged with blood. Dr. Mead from Galen observes, Contingere interdum, poros ex multo aut fervido spiritu adeo dilatari, ut etiam exeat sanguis per eos, fiatque sudor sanguineus. "Cases sometimes happen in which, through mental pressure, the pores may be so dilated that the blood may issue from them; so that there may be a bloody sweat." And Bishop PEARCE gives an instance from Thuanus (De Thou) of an Italian gentleman being so distressed with the fear of death that his body was covered with a bloody sweat. But it is fully evident that the fear of death could have no place in the mind of our blessed Lord. He was in the bloom of life, in perfect health, and had never suffered any thing from disease of any kind; this sweat was most assuredly produced by a preternatural cause. See at the end of the chapter. Luke 22:71; Luke 22:71.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

150. Jesus prays in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:39-46; John 18:1)

It must have been getting towards midnight by the time Jesus and his disciples reached the Garden of Gethsemane. Then, taking Peter, James and John with him, Jesus moved to a spot where they could be alone. He was filled with anguish and horror as he saw clearly what his death would mean. The three friends could do little to lessen his anguish except stay awake in sympathy with him. He had to battle against the temptation to avoid the suffering that lay ahead, but the battle was one he had to fight and win alone (Mark 14:32-34; Luke 22:39-40).

The ‘cup’ of suffering that caused Jesus such distress was not just physical suffering, great though that was. Above all it was the inner agony as the sinless one, God’s Son, took upon himself the sin of his human creatures and bore God’s wrath on their behalf (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 2:9; 1 Peter 2:24). It was an experience no one else could know, for no one else had Jesus’ sinlessness or shared his relationship with the Father. Jesus had a real human will, and when he considered the ordeal that lay ahead, a conflict arose within him. As he fought against the temptation to avoid the cross, his agony of mind was so intense that he perspired what appeared to be blood. But he won the battle, and determined that he would willingly submit to whatever his Father would have him go through (Mark 14:35-36; Luke 22:41-44).

Perhaps the reason why the disciples were unable to stay awake was not simply that they were over-tired, but that they were unable to withstand the satanic forces at work in the garden. Jesus saw their weakness and urged them to be alert and pray for strength, because they too were going to be put to the test. They would face the temptation to deny Jesus in order to save themselves (Mark 14:37-40; Luke 22:45-46).

Jesus, by contrast, would give himself without reservation, in order to save others. The decisive victory he won in the garden enabled him to meet his betrayal, trial and death with renewed courage and assurance (Mark 14:41-42).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground.

The Greek word for "drops of blood" is [@thromboi], used only here in the New Testament. "It means clots of blood"Herschel H. Hobbs, op. cit., p. 312. and was used by the physician Luke in the same manner as was common in ancient medical works. The spiritual overtones of this were noted by Henry, thus:

Sweat came in with sin, and was a branch of the curse (Genesis 3:19). When Christ was made sin and a curse for us, he underwent a grievous sweat, that in the sweat of his face we might eat the bread of life.Matthew Henry and Thomas Scott, Commentary on the Holy Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1960), p. 309.

Regarding this blood-sweat, it is a mistake to suppose any exaggeration here.

Aristotle (Hist. Anita. iii:19) said that in certain extraordinary states the blood becomes very liquefied and flows in such a manner that some have perspired blood.George R. Bliss, op. cit., p. 323.

Moreover, the phenomena is not unknown to modern physicians. Dummelow said that "Great mental agony has been known to produce this phenomenon."J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 767. The fact that death usually followed very quickly after such a blood-sweat suggests the necessity of the angel's mission to strengthen Jesus, who himself described his condition as being "exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death" (Matthew 26:38).

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

See the Matthew 26:30-46 notes; Mark 14:26-42 notes.

Luke 22:43

Strengthening him - His human nature, to sustain the great burden that was upon his soul. Some have supposed from this that he was not divine as well as human; for if he was “God,” how could an angel give any strength or comfort? and why did not the divine nature “alone” sustain the human? But the fact that he was “divine” does not affect the case at all. It might be asked with the same propriety, If he was, as all admit, the friend of God, and beloved of God, and holy, why, if he was a mere man, did not “God” sustain him alone, without an angel’s intervening? But the objection in neither case would have any force. The “man, Christ Jesus,” was suffering. His human nature was in agony, and it is the “manner” of God to sustain the afflicted by the intervention of others; nor was there any more “unfitness” in sustaining the human nature of his Son in this manner than any other sufferer.

Luke 22:44

In an agony - See this verse explained in the notes at Matthew 26:42-44.

Luke 22:45

Sleeping for sorrow - On account of the greatness of their sorrow. See the notes at Matthew 26:40.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Luke's gospel, chapter 22.

Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover ( Luke 22:1 ).

The Feast of Unleavened Bread actually was for six days, from the fifteenth of Nizan to the twenty-first. However, the fifteenth of Nizan was the day of the Passover. And so it was drawing nigh. People were beginning to prepare for it. Two days before the feast they would go through the house with brooms and brushes and make sure that they got rid of all of the leaven out of the house, in quite a ceremony. And of course, they would always leave a little bit of leaven for one of the children to find, in order that they could find the last bit of leaven that was there. And they would purge the house of leaven in preparation for the Passover. And so this time was drawing close.

And the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might kill Jesus; but they feared the people. Then Satan entered into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve. And he went his way, and communed with the chief priests and the captains, how he might betray him unto them. And they were glad, and covenanted to give him money. And he promised, and sought opportunity to betray him unto them in the absence of the multitude ( Luke 22:2-6 ).

So it was their desire to catch Jesus away from the multitudes. Because, as we noticed last week in our study, the crowds were coming to hear Him in the temple daily as He was teaching, and many counted Him to be a prophet. And so, though the scribes and the high priests and all were wanting to move against Jesus, they were too cowardly to move against the popular movement of the crowd that was being attracted to Jesus at this point. And so when Judas came to them, they were very happy, actually, that they might have this opportunity of catching Jesus away from the crowd, arresting Him and getting the movement going the other direction before the people would really realize what was happening.

Judas Iscariot is, of course, a very interesting character. We are not really told too much about him. As we get into John's gospel, we'll learn that he was actually the treasurer of the group. And according to John, had been pilfering out of the group treasury. Here we are told that Satan entered into him. He is called the Son of Perdition by Peter. And Jesus said of him, "It would have been good for that man if he had never been born." A tragic life. A man who became obsessed by the greed, the desire for power. And there are many suggestions as to the motives behind Judas' betrayal of Jesus. There are those who suggest that he was only trying to force Jesus to establish the kingdom. And that he felt by betraying Him and turning Him over to the Jews, it would force the hand of Jesus that He would not be able to wait any longer, but would have to manifest who He was and establish the kingdom of God. And that when Jesus was not defending Himself, but was submitting to the edict of death, that his plan more or less backfired, and that's when he came to the priests bringing the money back and throwing it at their feet. Who knows what the true motive of a man is? These are only speculations by men who have perhaps tried to somehow excuse in a way the actions of Judas Iscariot. I personally feel that his actions are inexcusable. The method by which he chose to betray the Lord with a kiss is reprehensible.

Now, verse Luke 22:7 : The Day, or the Preparation of the Passover, has come.

Now the day came of unleavened bread, when the Passover must be killed ( Luke 22:7 ).

The Passover was a Sabbath day in which they were to do no work; it was a feast day. And this day had come in which they were to kill the lamb for the Passover dinner. All of the cooking, all of the baking, all of the preparation had to be done before sundown. It is important that we recall that the Jewish day begins at six o'clock in the evening. So all of the preparation had to be made for the Passover dinner before six o'clock in the evening. And to them, the day began, the day of Passover began at six o'clock in the evening and did not end until the following day at six o'clock in the evening. Now, by the end of the following day, Jesus had been crucified, which means that Jesus was crucified on the day of the Passover Feast, which began at six o'clock the evening before when He celebrated the feast with His disciples. But He was crucified on the day of Passover. Which, of course, is extremely significant when you remember that the Passover was a memorial feast to remind them of how God had delivered their fathers from the plague of death in Egypt when they followed the instructions of God and had slain the lamb and put the blood on the lentil in the doorpost of their house. So that when the Lord passed through Egypt that night, when He saw the blood upon the doors of their houses, He passed over those houses; hence the word Passover. He had passed over those houses and the firstborn was saved alive, because of the sacrificial lamb, the lamb for the house. That was only to look forward to the Lamb of God that would one day take away the sins of the world. Our sacrificial Lamb, who by His death, by His sacrifice, has spared us from death. And so this Passover feast that the Jews observed was looking back, but it was also looking forward. And it had its fulfillment in Jesus. Paul, in writing to the Colossian church about the Sabbath days, about the new moons, the holy days...and of course, the Passover was related to the new moon...in talking to them about these, he said, "These were all a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ" ( Colossians 2:17 ). They were all really looking forward to their fulfillment in Jesus Christ. And so the Feast of the Passover was fulfilled in the death of Jesus Christ on that very day, God's Lamb slain for the sins of the world. The Feast of Pentecost was fulfilled fifty days later when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the church and 3,000 people were converted, the first fruits of what we see the continuing work today. As the Feast of Pentecost was the Feast of First Fruits, the offering of the first fruits unto the Lord.

Inasmuch as these two major feasts have their fulfillment in the New Testament and in the church, we would then conclude that that third feast, which was inaugurated by God in the Old Testament, the Feast of Trumpets, must also have a fulfillment within the church...that feast that looked back to God's delivering their fathers out of the ravages of the wilderness and bringing them into the promised land. And so its fulfillment is yet awaited by the church. "When the trumpet of God shall sound, and we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and ever be with our Lord" ( 1 Thessalonians 4:17 ).

"And so came the Day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover must be killed."

And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat. And they said unto him, Where do You want us to prepare it? And he said to them, Behold, when you enter the city, there you will find a man who will meet you, and he is bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he goes. And you shall say to the goodman of the house, The Master says to thee, Where is the guest chamber, where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples? And he shall show you a large upper room furnished: there make ready. And they went, and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the Passover. And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him. And he said unto them, With desire have I desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer: for I say unto you, I will not eat any more thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took the cup, and he gave thanks, and he said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves: for I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come. And he took the bread, and he gave thanks, and he broke it, and he gave it unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. And likewise also the cup after the supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you ( Luke 22:8-20 ).

And so Jesus, here, instituted what we call the Lord's Supper with His disciples, as He took the traditional Jewish Passover feast and gave to the emblems of that feast their true meaning. Now, they always had these three pieces of bread that they would put in these little sacks. The middle piece was broken, sort of a matzoh loaf, and it was broken. And Jesus broke it and said, "Take, eat, this is My body, which was broken for you." And then, after dinner they always had the final cup. And when they were having this after dinner cup, Jesus said, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for the remission of sins." To study the traditional Jewish Passover feast, even as it is observed by them today, is extremely enlightening and extremely significant to us as Christians, because you can see in its symbolism Jesus Christ so clearly. You can see the gospel so clearly. Their hearts surely should have been prepared by it for the receiving of Jesus Christ. It's just woven into the traditions of the Passover feast. But to them, it was a memorial of God's deliverance in Egypt. From the time the child said, "What makes this night different from all other nights?" and the father begins to explain the story of God's delivering of their fathers out of the bondage of Egypt, with the various things around the table representing the bondage of Egypt and God's deliverance. Now a whole new meaning is given to it by Jesus Christ, for it is now been fulfilled. And the bread now represents the broken body of Jesus, and the cup now represent His blood that was shed for our sins.

But, behold, [He said,] the hand of him that betrays me is with me on this table. And truly the Son of man goes, as it was determined: but woe unto that man by whom He is betrayed! ( Luke 22:21-22 )

The Bible tells us that Jesus knew who it was that was going to betray Him. Here He is just giving a solemn warning. I think that with this solemn warning, Judas still had a chance to back out if he wanted to.

And they began to inquire among themselves, which of them it was that should do this thing. And there was also a strife among them, of which of them should be accounted the greatest ( Luke 22:23-24 ).

It's sort of sad, sort of pathetic...here Jesus is filled with the knowledge that He is soon going to be suffering on the cross. And He is saying, "Look, I've really wanted to eat this supper with you before I suffer. Now this bread is My body; it's going to be broken for you. This cup is My blood; it's going to be shed for the remission of sins. This is going to be God's new covenant." And He is really now sort of obsessed with the suffering and the cross. And the disciples are arguing among themselves as to which one is going to be the greatest when He establishes the kingdom.

And so he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles ( Luke 22:25 )

And the word Gentiles in the New Testament is equivalent to heathen.

they exercise lordship over their subjects; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors ( Luke 22:25 ).

It hasn't changed much. The government today declares that they are our benefactors. They take away a hundred and then give you back one, declaring them to be your benefactors.

But [He said,] it shall not be so among you: but he that is the greatest, let him be as the youngest; and he that is chief, as he that does serve. For whether is greater, he that sits at meat, or he that serves? Is not he that sits at meat? but I am one from among you as one who serves ( Luke 22:26-27 ).

Jesus is teaching His disciples that the true path to greatness is the path of serving. Jesus said, "I am among you as One who serves." He also said in another place, "The servant is not greater than his lord." Too many ministers have the wrong concept of the ministry. They fail to see the servanthood of the ministry. They get to the place where they almost expect people to do special favors for them because they are the minister. But in reality, as a minister, it means that I am a servant, a servant to all. Now the Gentiles loved these positions of authority. They loved to rule over people. They loved dominion over people's lives. But Jesus said, "It shall not be among you. You need to learn to be servants."

"And then He said unto them,"

You are those who have continued with me and my temptations. And I appoint you a kingdom, as my father has appointed unto me; that you may eat and drink at my table in the kingdom, and sit on the thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel ( Luke 22:28-30 ).

Now this He is saying to His twelve apostles; of course, excluding Judas Iscariot. But He is telling the apostles. And I think Paul actually is the one who got appointed to take the place of Judas, though the church drew straws and picked Mathias. That was the luck of the straws, but it would appear that it was God's choice that Paul was the twelfth. But the Lord is saying, and this to me is something that is glorious to contemplate, that "you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on the thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."

And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen your brothers ( Luke 22:31-32 ).

There's something special about Simon. They say that he was large of physical stature. He was impulsive, lovable, just a big, strong, lovable guy. Because of his impulsiveness, getting into trouble, he would often speak up and say the first thing that came into his mind, right or wrong. And sometimes it was right and very good, and sometimes it was very wrong. But Jesus said of him, "Satan has desired to have you, that he might sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that you faith fail not." I believe that the prayer of Jesus was answered. I don't believe that the problem of Peter was the problem of faith. Oh, he failed as a witness. He denied his Lord, but there was never a failure of his faith. He always believed in the Lord. "...and when you are converted, when you're turned, strengthen your brothers."

And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death ( Luke 22:33 ).

Yes, Peter, we know.

And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before you shall have thrice denied that you even know Me. And then he said unto them, When I sent you out ( Luke 22:34-35 )

Now, this is when He had sent them out into the ministry two by two.

I told you not to take a purse, not to take any script, not to take extra shoes, did you lack anything? And they said, Nothing, Lord. And he said unto them, But now, if you have a purse, take it, and likewise script: and he that has no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. For I say unto you, that this that is written must be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end ( Luke 22:35-37 ).

Jesus is saying, "Look, I sent you out before. I provided for you. But you're going to be going out soon again. I'm not going to be there this time. And things are going to be different; it's going to be tough. Before you were received, you're going to be rejected, you're going to be imprisoned, you're going to be hailed before the courts, you're going to have persecution. It's going to be hard."

And they said, Lord, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough ( Luke 22:38 ).

In other words, "You don't really understand, but you will." Jesus is not telling them to go out and make war against the world with swords, but He's just indicating the difficulty of that ministry that they are going to face after He has been taken away from them.

Now, in verse Luke 22:37 He said, "Those things must be accomplished in Me, which the scriptures declared." Jesus had absolute confidence in the prophecies, declaring, "They must be fulfilled." You can have that same absolute confidence in the word of prophecy. You can know that it must be fulfilled. Now, many times we make a mistake when we guess how it is going to be fulfilled. And a lot of damage has been done to the subject of prophecy by men's guesswork. To try to guess just who the anti-christ is, is a dangerous and futile bit of speculation. We know that there shall arise an anti-christ. We don't know who he is. We know they're going to rebuild their temple. We don't know when or how. We know that the scriptures must be fulfilled. They will be fulfilled. And Jesus had that confidence. And the scripture said, Isaiah 53 , "He will be numbered with the transgressors." "This," He said, "has to be fulfilled."

And so he came out of the upper room, and he went, as he was accustomed to going to the Mount of Olives; and his disciples followed him. And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that you enter not into temptation ( Luke 22:39-40 ).

Good prayer! Lord, help me not to enter into temptation.

And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and he kneeled down, and prayed, and he said, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose up from prayer, and he was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said unto them, Why sleep? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation ( Luke 22:41-46 ).

The prayer of Jesus is significant because Jesus is talking about redemption for man. "If it is possible." If what is possible? "If salvation for man is possible by anything other than the cross, let this cup pass from Me." That's basically what He was praying. That is why the cross of Jesus Christ offends many people today, because they say Christianity is too narrow. "All roads lead to God. It doesn't matter who you believe in, it's just important that you believe and have faith." But the cross of Jesus Christ declares that there is only one way to God and that is through the cross. If it is possible, if it were possible that man could be saved by being religious, the cross would be unnecessary. If you could be saved by keeping the law, the cross would be unnecessary. If you could be saved by being good, the cross would be unnecessary. The cross declares that there is only one way by which a man can have forgiveness of sins and approach God, and that is through the death of Jesus Christ, and it declares a narrow one-way path. And that's why it offends a lot of people. And so the cross, the Bible says, is an offense to the Jews. To the Greeks, it's foolishness. But unto us who have been saved thereby, it is the power of God unto salvation. So Jesus is praying about the cross, really asking the Father for a substitute way, if it is possible. And the fact that He went to the cross declares it was not possible. There's only one way by which man could be redeemed.

And while he was yet speaking to his disciples, behold a multitude, and he that was called Judas, one of the twelve, went before them, and he drew near to Jesus to kiss him. And Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss? When they which were about him saw what would follow, they said to him, Lord, shall we smite with a sword? ( Luke 22:47-49 )

The disciples had just awakened. Now there's a crowd there and they're getting ready to arrest Jesus. And the disciples are confused and they asked, "Lord, shall we smite with the sword?" He had just said, you know, "If you don't have a sword, sell your garment and get one."

And one of them ( Luke 22:50 )

We are told in another gospel which one it was. And, of course, we could guess, couldn't we? Peter.

smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear ( Luke 22:50 ).

He can be lucky Peter was sleepy. Peter would have had halved him.

And Jesus answered and said, That's enough. And he touched his ear, and healed him. Then Jesus said to the chief priests, and the captains of the temple, and the elders, which had come to him, Are you come out, as against a thief with swords and staves? When I was daily with you in the temple, you did not stretch forth your hand against me: but this is your hour, the power of darkness ( Luke 22:51-53 ).

Oh, what a horrible hour in the history of mankind, when the power of darkness took over!

And they took him, and led him, and brought him to the high priest's house. And Peter followed afar off. And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the hall, and they were sat down together, Peter sat down among them. But a certain maid beheld him as he sat by the fire, and earnestly looked upon him, and said, This man was also with him. And he denied him, saying, Woman, I don't know him. And after a little while another saw him, and said, Thou art also of them. And Peter said, Man, I am not. And about the space of an hour after another one confidently affirmed, saying, Of a truth this fellow was also with him; for he is a Galilean. And Peter said, Man, I don't know what you're talking about. And immediately, while he yet spoke, the cock crew. And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crows, you will deny me thrice. And Peter went out, and wept bitterly ( Luke 22:54-62 ).

"Lord, I'm ready to go to prison. I'm ready to die with You." Now, do not think that Peter was insincere. I believe with all of my heart that Peter meant that exactly; that in his heart he was ready to go to prison, he was ready to die for Jesus. Even as when we make our promises to the Lord, there is great sincerity. However, so many times when the showdown comes, we find ourselves with Peter, denying even in simple things. How is it that he denied his Lord? First of all, I think that we observe that he was sleeping when he ought to be praying. I think that that's one of the reasons behind his failure. As it is a reason behind our failure, so often we are sleeping instead of praying. Secondly, he sought to follow the Lord afar off. That again is a dangerous place to be--trying to just be a fringe Christian, follow the Lord from afar. Not to make that deep total commitment, but just, "Oh, yes, I think it's great to go to church and that's fine and people should, you know." And then, he was warming himself at the enemies' fire, another dangerous thing. The result is denial. Now, how did Jesus look at Peter? I do not think it was a... "Peter, how could you?" look. Nor do I think it was a... "I told you so!" look.

Someone came up to me this morning, and they had been in the fellowship hall where you get a close-up. And they noticed this spot on my head. And they said, "Tell your wife to be more gentle with you." And I said, "Would you believe that I bumped it on a cupboard door in the kitchen?" I was messing around in the kitchen and I had left the upper cupboard door open slightly and, you know, wasn't looking or paying attention and "whamo!" And here I saw that skin and flesh on the corner of the door. And my dear wife, when she saw my head, said, "I've told you to close those doors!" Oh, the sympathy I get.

I think that the look that Jesus gave Peter was, "Peter, I understand. I understand, Peter. I love you still, Peter." I think it was a look of love; perhaps the deepest love that Peter had ever observed in one's eyes. The understanding of Jesus. More or less, "That's alright, Peter. I understand." And that's what broke Peter's heart. The Bible said, "Don't you realize that it is the goodness of God that brings man to repentance?" You know, if a person comes down really hard on you, your tendency is to defend yourself, to stiffen, to justify your actions. But when a person comes and puts their arm around you, and you say, "Ah," they say, "I understand and I'm praying for you. And I love you brother." Hey, that breaks you up. You know, you have no defenses against that. It melts you. And I think that's exactly how Jesus looked at Peter. "Peter, I love you. I understand, Peter, that's okay."

"And Peter went out and he wept bitterly." Failure! "God, must I always be a failure?" "No, Peter, not always. In a few days you're going to receive power and you're going to be the witness God wants you to be." We'll get to that in the twenty-fourth chapter.

And the men that held Jesus mocked him, and smote him. And when they had blindfolded him ( Luke 22:63-64 ),

A very cruel thing to do! Because the body is marvelously constructed so that when we can see a blow coming, there is that natural reflex action of the body of a movement with a blow that cushions the blow. The body is marvelously coordinated and we have marvelous reflex capacities. The quarterback is injured when he's blindsided. You see these big three hundred pound guards coming in and throwing their shoulder in and knocking him to the ground, and another guy pouncing on him. And he bounces up and gets back into the huddle. When they get hurt is when he gets blindsided. He doesn't see it coming, he isn't able to roll with it, he isn't able to relax and roll with it; that's when you get hurt. You can jump off of a table and not hurt yourself, because you're expecting it, you're bracing for it and you're bending your knees and you're giving with it when you hit. And yet, you can step off of a curb and break your leg if you don't realize the curb is there. Just that six inches can jar you so bad it can break an ankle, break a leg if you're not expecting it, if you're not coordinating for it. The same with a blow. If you're blindfolded and you can't see the blow coming, you're not able to move, you're not able to faint with it or move with it. And it hits you with its full force. And that hurts. And so, blindfolding Him and then beginning to hit Him, His face began to be disfigured, as these lumps began to rise. The eyes began to blacken and these huge lumps began to form from these blows. Isaiah tells us that His face was so beaten, so marred, that when they were through, you could not recognize Him as a human being. And he said, "We hid as it were our faces from Him." To look at Him was such a shocking thing; we couldn't stand to look. You just sort of cringed and closed your eyes and turned away. It's too horrible. You just can't look; you're shocked.

"And they mocked Him,"

saying, Prophesy, who is it that hit you? And many other things blasphemously spake they against him ( Luke 22:64-65 ).

As He said, "This is your hour; it is the power of darkness." And we see man at his worst.

And as soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and the scribes came together, and they led him into their council, saying, Art thou the Christ? ( Luke 22:66-67 )

You see, it was not lawful for them to assemble until daylight. And so they held Him. And as soon as it was day, they gathered into their chambers and they said, "Art Thou the Messiah? Tell us."

And he said unto them, If I told you, you wouldn't believe: And if I ask you, you'll not answer me, or let me go. Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God. Then said they all, Are you then the Son of God? And he said unto them, You said it. And they said, What need we for any further witness? we ourselves have heard it out of his own mouth ( Luke 22:67-71 ). "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

1. Jesus’ preparation in Gethsemane 22:39-46 (cf. Matthew 26:30, 36-46; Mark 14:26, 32-42; John 18:1)

Luke organized his narrative so Jesus’ praying in the garden follows immediately His instructions to the disciples about their preparing for the crisis to come. The present pericope shows Jesus’ proper approach to it and the disciples’ improper approach. The next pericope reveals the consequences of their actions.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

D. The arrest of Jesus 22:39-53

This section in Luke’s Gospel consists of two incidents: Jesus’ preparation for His arrest and crucifixion, and the arrest itself. The subject of the whole section is proper preparation for persecution.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Only Luke mentioned the angel who strengthened Jesus (cf. Luke 9:26; Luke 12:8-9; Luke 15:10; Luke 16:22; Matthew 4:11; Mark 1:13). Probably he did this to help his readers realize the supernatural strength that praying brings (cf. 1 Kings 19:5-6; Daniel 10:17-18). However the angel’s presence did not remove the agony that Jesus felt as He prayed. The implication may be that the angel’s help enabled Jesus to pray more intensely and so to resist temptation more effectively. Jesus’ fervency, like His posture, reflected His feelings, this time His horror at the prospect of the Cross. God does not always spare us trials, but He provides strength to face them. [Note: Bock, Luke, p. 568.]

"His going into Death was His final conflict with Satan for man, and on his behalf. By submitting to it He took away the power of Death; He disarmed Death by burying his shaft in His own Heart." [Note: Edersheim, 2:539.]

In what sense was Jesus’ sweat similar to drops of blood? Perhaps it was so profuse that it resembled blood flowing from a wound. [Note: Liefeld, "Luke," p. 1032.] Perhaps there is an allusion to this suffering being the fulfillment of God’s judgment on Adam when He said that Adam would live by the sweat of his brow (Genesis 3:19). [Note: Martin, p. 260.] Luke may have been creating a rhetorical expression, namely, tears of blood. [Note: Marshall, The Gospel . . ., p. 832.] Perhaps Jesus’ sweat was red because blood exuded through the pores of His skin. [Note: Plummer, pp. 510-11.] Probably Luke made a connection with blood because Jesus’ sweat was the result of His great sufferings as shedding blood is often the result of intense suffering. The point then is that Jesus was sweating profusely, and His sweat was the result of His suffering in anticipation of the Cross.

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 22

AND SATAN ENTERED INTO JUDAS ( Luke 22:1-6 )

22:1-6 The Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Passover, was near, and the chief priests and the scribes searched to find a way to destroy Jesus, for they were afraid of the people. And Satan entered into Judas, who was called Iscariot, who belonged to the number of the Twelve. So he went away and discussed with the chief priests and captains how he might betray Jesus to them. They were glad and they undertook to give him money. So he agreed, and he began to look for a suitable time to betray him, when the mob were not there.

It was at Passover time that Jesus came to Jerusalem to die. The Feast of Unleavened Bread is not, strictly speaking, the same thing as the Passover. The Feast of Unleavened Bread lasted for a week, from 15th to 21st Nisan (April), and the Passover itself was eaten on 15th Nisan. It commemorated the deliverance of the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt ( Exodus 12:1-51). On that night the angel of death smote the first-born son in every Egyptian family; but he passed over the homes of the Israelites, because the lintels of their doors were smeared with the blood of the lamb to distinguish them. On that night they left so quickly that, at their last meal, there was no time to bake bread with leaven. It was unleavened cakes they ate.

There were elaborate preparations for the Passover. Roads were repaired; bridges were made safe; wayside tombs were whitewashed lest the pilgrim should fail to see them, and so touch them and become unclean. For a month before, the story and meaning of the Passover was the subject of the teaching of every synagogue. Two days before the Passover there was in every house a ceremonial search for leaven. The householder took a candle and solemnly searched every nook and cranny in silence, and the last particle of leaven was thrown out.

Every male Jew, who was of age and who lived within 15 miles of the holy city, was bound by law to attend the Passover. But it was the ambition of every Jew in every part of the world (as it is still) to come to the Passover in Jerusalem at least once in his lifetime. To this day, when Jews keep the Passover in every land they pray that they may keep it next year in Jerusalem. Because of this vast numbers came to Jerusalem at the Passover time. Cestius was governor of Palestine in the time of Nero and Nero tended to belittle the importance of the Jewish faith. To convince Nero of it, Cestius took a census of the lambs slain at one particular Passover. Josephus tells us that the number was 256,500. The law laid it down that the minimum number for a Passover celebration was 10. That means that on this occasion, if these figures are correct, there must have been more that 2,700,000 pilgrims to the Passover. It was in a city crowded like that that the drama of the last days of Jesus was played out.

The atmosphere of Passover time was always inflammable. The headquarters of the Roman government was at Caesarea, and normally only a small detachment of troops was stationed at Jerusalem; but for the Passover season many more were drafted in. The problem which faced the Jewish authorities was how to arrest Jesus without provoking a riot. It was solved for them by the treachery of Judas. Satan entered into Judas. Two things stand out.

(i) Just as God is ever looking for men to be his instruments, so is Satan. A man can be the instrument of good or of evil, of God or of the devil. The Zoroastrians see this whole universe as the battle ground between the god of the light and the god of the dark, and in that battle a man must choose his side. We, too, know that a man can be the servant of the light or of the dark.

(ii) But it remains true that Satan could not have entered into Judas unless Judas had opened the door. There is no handle on the outside of the door of the human heart. It must be opened from within.

To every man there openeth

A high way and a low;

And every man decideth

The way his soul shall go.

It is our own decision whether we will choose to be the instrument of Satan or a weapon in the hand of God. We can enlist in either service. God help us choose aright!

THE LAST MEAL TOGETHER ( Luke 22:7-23 )

22:7-23 There came the day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover had to be sacrificed. Jesus despatched Peter and John. "Go," he said, "and make ready the Passover for us that we may eat it." They said to him, "Where do you want us to make it ready?" "Look you," he said to them, "when you have gone into the city, a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him to the house into which he enters; and you will say to the master of the house, 'The Teacher says to you, "Where is the guest room that I may eat the Passover with my disciples?"' And he will show you a big upper room, ready furnished. There, get things ready." So they went away and found everything just as he had told them; and they made ready the Passover.

Once again Jesus did not leave things until the last moment; his plans were already made. The better class houses had two rooms. The one room was on the top of the other; and the house looked exactly like a small box placed on top of a large one. The upper room was reached by an outside stair. During the Passover time all lodging in Jerusalem was free. The only pay a host might receive for letting lodgings to the pilgrims was the skin of the lamb which was eaten at the feast. A very usual use of an upper room was that it was the place where a Rabbi met with his favourite disciples to talk things over with them and to open his heart to them. Jesus had taken steps to procure such a room. He sent Peter and John into the city to look for a man bearing a jar of water. To carry water was a woman's task. A man carrying a jar of water would be as easy to pick out as, say, a man using a lady's umbrella on a wet day. This was a prearranged signal between Jesus and a friend.

So the feast went on; and Jesus used the ancient symbols and gave them a new meaning.

(i) He said of the bread, "This is my body." Herein is exactly what we mean by a sacrament. A sacrament is something, usually a very ordinary thing, which has acquired a meaning far beyond itself for him who has eyes to see and a heart to understand. There is nothing specially theological or mysterious about this.

In the house of everyone of us there is a drawer full of things which can only be called junk, and yet we will not throw them out, because when we touch and handle and look at them, they bring back this or that person, or this or that occasion. They are common things but they have a meaning far beyond themselves. That is a sacrament.

When Sir James Barries mother died and they were clearing up her belongings, they found that she had kept all the envelopes in which her famous son had posted her the cheques he so faithfully and lovingly sent. They were only old envelopes but they meant much to her. That is a sacrament.

When Nelson was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral a party of his sailors bore his coffin to the tomb. One who saw the scene writes, "With reverence and with efficiency they lowered the body of the world's greatest admiral into its tomb. Then, as though answering to a sharp order from the quarter deck, they all seized the Union Jack with which the coffin had been covered and tore it to fragments, and each took his souvenir of the illustrious dead." All their lives that little bit of coloured cloth would speak to them of the admiral they had loved. That is a sacrament.

The bread which we eat at the sacrament is common bread, but, for him who has a heart to feel and understand, it is the very body of Christ.

(ii) He said of the cup, "This cup is the new covenant made at the price of my blood." In the biblical sense, a covenant is a relationship between man and God. God graciously approached man; and man promised to obey and to keep his law. The whole matter is set out in Exodus 24:1-8. The continuance of that covenant depends on man's keeping his pledge and obeying this law; Man could not and cannot do that; man's sin interrupts the relationship between man and God. All the Jewish sacrificial system was designed to restore that relationship by the offering of sacrifice to God to atone for sin. What Jesus said was this--"By my life and by my death I have made possible a new relationship between you and God. You are sinners. That is true. But because I died for you, God is no longer your enemy but your friend." It cost the life of Christ to restore the lost relationship of friendship between God and man.

(iii) Jesus said, "Do this and it will make you remember me." Jesus knew how easily the human mind forgets. The Greeks had an adjective which they used to describe time--"time," they said, "which wipes all things out," as if the mind of man were a slate and time a sponge which wiped it clean. Jesus was saying, "In the rush and press of things you will forget me. Man forgets because he must, and not because he will. Come in sometimes to the peace and stillness of my house and do this again with my people--and you will remember."

It made the tragedy all the more tragic that at that very table there was one who was a traitor. Jesus Christ has at every communion table those who betray him, for if in his house we pledge ourselves to him and then by our lives go out to deny him, we too are traitors to him.

STRIFE AMONG THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST ( Luke 22:24-30 )

22:24-30 Strife arose amongst them about which was to be considered greatest. Jesus said to them, "The kings of the gentiles exercise lordship over them and those who have authority over them claim the title of Benefactor. It must not be so with you; but let him who is greatest among you be as the youngest; and let him who is the leader be as him who serves. Who is the greater? He who sits at table, or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at table? But I am among you as one who serves. You are those who have stayed with me in my tribulations; and I assign to you a kingdom, just as my Father has assigned one to me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom; and you will sit upon thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."

It is one of the most poignantly tragic things in the gospel story that the disciples could quarrel about precedence in the very shadow of the cross. The seating arrangements at a Jewish feast were very definite. The table was arranged like a square with one side left open. At the top side of the square, in the centre, sat the host. On his right sat the guest of first honour; on his left the second guest; second on his right, the third guest; second on his left the fourth guest; and so on round the table. The disciples had been quarrelling about where they were to sit, for they had not yet rid themselves of the idea of an earthly kingdom. Jesus told them bluntly that the standards of his kingdom were not the standards of this world. A king on earth was evaluated by the power he exercised. One of the commonest titles for a king in the east was Euergetes ( G2110) , which is the Greek for Benefactor. Jesus said, "It is not the king but the servant who obtains that title in my kingdom."

(i) What the world needs is service. The odd thing is that the business world knows this. Bruce Barton points out that you will find by the road-side, over and over again, the sign, Service Station. It was the claim of one firm, "We will crawl under your car oftener and get ourselves dirtier than any of our competitors." The strange thing is that there is more argument about precedence, and more concern about people's "places" in the church than anywhere else. The world needs and recognizes service.

(ii) It is only the man who will consent to serve more than anyone else who will really rise high. It frequently happens that the ordinary worker will go home at 5.30 p.m. to forget his or her job until next morning, while the light will be burning in the office of the chief executive long after that. Often passers-by would see the light burning in John D. Rockefeller's office when the rest of the building was in darkness. It is a law of life that service leads to greatness; and the higher a man rises the greater the servant he must be.

(iii) We can found our life either on giving or on getting; but the plain fact is that if we found it on getting we shall miss both the friendship of man and the reward of God, for no one ever loved a man who was always out for himself.

(iv) Jesus finished his warning by promising his disciples that those who had stood by him through thick and thin would in the end reign with him. God will be in no man's debt. Those who have shared in the bearing of Christ's cross will some day share in the wearing of his crown.

PETER'S TRAGEDY ( Luke 22:31-38 ; Luke 22:54-62 )

22:31-38,54-62 "Simon, Simon," Jesus said, "Look you, Satan has been allowed to have you that he may sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not wholly fail. And you--when you have turned again--strengthen your brothers." He said to him, "Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death." "Peter," he said, "I tell you, the cock will not crow today before you have three times denied that you know me."

We take the story of the tragedy of Peter all in one piece. Peter was a strange paradoxical mixture.

(i) Even in spite of his denial he was fundamentally loyal. H. G. Wells once said, "A man may be a bad musician, and yet be passionately in love with music." No matter what Peter did, however terrible his failure, he was nonetheless passionately devoted to Jesus. There is hope for the man who even when he is sinning is still haunted by goodness.

(ii) Peter was well warned. Jesus warned him both directly and indirectly. Luke 22:33-38 with their talk of swords is a strange passage. But what they mean is this--Jesus was saying, "All the time so far you have had me with you. In a very short time you are going to be cast upon your own resources. What are you going to do about it? The danger in a very short time is not that you will possess nothing; but that you will have to fight for your very existence." This was not an incitement to armed force. It was simply a vivid eastern way of telling the disciples that their very lives were at stake. No one could say that the seriousness and danger of the situation, and his own liability to collapse were not presented to Peter.

(iii) Peter was over-confident. If a man says, "That is one thing I will never do," that is often the very thing against which he must most carefully guard. Again and again castles have been captured because the attackers took the route which seemed unattackable and unscalable and at that very spot the defenders were off their guard. Satan is subtle. He attacks the point at which a man is too sure of himself, for there he is likeliest to be unprepared.

(iv) In all fairness it is to be noted that Peter was one of the two disciples ( John 18:15) who had the courage to follow Jesus into the courtyard of the High Priest's house at all. Peter fell to a temptation which could only have come to a brave man. The man of courage always runs more risks than the man who seeks a placid safety. Liability to temptation is the price that a man pays when he is adventurous in mind and in action. It may well be that it is better to fail in a gallant enterprise than to run away and not even to attempt it.

(v) Jesus did not speak to Peter in anger but looked at him in sorrow. Peter could have stood it if Jesus had turned and reviled him; but that voiceless, grief-laden look went to his heart like a sword and opened a fountain of tears.

I think I'd sooner frizzle up,

I' the flames of a burnin' 'ell,

Than stand and look into 'is face,

And 'ear 'is voice say--"Well?"

The penalty of sin is to face, not the anger of Jesus, but the heartbreak in his eyes.

(vi) Jesus said a very lovely thing to Peter. "When you have turned," he said, "strengthen your brothers." It is as if Jesus said to Peter, "You will deny me; and you will weep bitter tears; but the result will be that you will be better able to help your brothers who are going through it." We cannot really help a man until we have been in the same furnace of affliction or the same abyss of shame as he has been. It was said of Jesus, "He can help others who are going through it because he has been through it himself." ( Hebrews 2:18.) To experience the shame of failure and disloyalty is not all loss, because it gives us a sympathy and an understanding that otherwise we would never have won.

THY WILL BE DONE ( Luke 22:39-46 )

22:39-46 Jesus went out, and, as his custom was, made his way to the Mount of Olives. The disciples, too, accompanied him. When he came to the place, he said to them, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation." And he was withdrawn from them, about a stone's throw, and he knelt and prayed. "Father," he said, "if it is your will, take this cup from me; but not my will, but yours be done," And an angel from heaven appeared strengthening him. He was in an agony, and he prayed still more intensely, and his sweat was as drops of blood failing upon the ground. So he rose from prayer and came to his disciples, and found them sleeping from grief. "Why are you sleeping?" he said to them. "Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation."

The space within Jerusalem was so limited that there was no room for gardens. Many well-to-do people, therefore, had private gardens out on the Mount of Olives. Some wealthy friend had given Jesus the privilege of using such a garden, and it was there that Jesus went to fight his lonely battle. He was only thirty-three; and no one wants to die at thirty-three. He knew what crucifixion was like; he had seen it. He was in an agony; the Greek word is used of someone fighting a battle with sheer fear. There is no scene like this in all history. This was the very hinge and turning point in Jesus' life. He could have turned back even yet. He could have refused the cross. The salvation of the world hung in the balance as the Son of God literally sweated it out in Gethsemane; and he won.

A famous pianist said of Chopin's nocturne in C sharp minor, "I must tell you about it. Chopin told Liszt, and Liszt told me. In this piece all is sorrow and trouble. Oh such sorrow and trouble!--until he begins to speak to God, to pray; then it is all right." That is the way it was with Jesus. He went into Gethsemane in the dark; he came out in the light--because he had talked with God. He went into Gethsemane in an agony; he came out with the victory won and with peace in his soul--because he had talked with God.

It makes all the difference in what tone of voice a man says, "Thy will be done."

(i) He may say it in a tone of helpless submission, as one who is in the grip of a power against which it is hopeless to fight. The words may be the death-knell of hope.

(ii) He may say it as one who has been battered into submission. The words may be the admission of complete defeat.

(iii) He may say it as one who has been utterly frustrated and who sees that the dream can never come true: The words may be those of a bleak regret or even of a bitter anger which is all the more bitter because it cannot do anything about it.

(iv) He may say it with the accent of perfect trust. That is how Jesus said it. He was speaking to one who was Father; he was speaking to a God whose everlasting arms were underneath and about him even on the cross. He was submitting, but he was submitting to the love that would never let him go. Life's hardest task is to accept what we cannot understand; but we can do even that if we are sure enough of the love of God.

God, thou art love! I build my faith on that ...

I know thee, who has kept my path, and made

Light for me in the darkness, tempering sorrow

So that it reached me like a solemn joy:

It were too strange that I should doubt thy love.

Jesus spoke like that; and when we can speak like that, we can look up and say in perfect trust, "Thy will be done."

THE TRAITOR'S KISS ( Luke 22:47-53 )

22:47-53 While Jesus was still speaking--look you--there came a crowd, and the man called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He came up to Jesus to kiss him; but Jesus said to him, "Judas, is it with a kiss that you would betray the Son of Man?" When those who were around him saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, shall we strike with the sword?" And one of them struck the servant of the High Priest and cut off his ear. Jesus answered, "Let it come even to this!" Jesus said to the chief priests and the Temple captains, and to the elders who had come to him, "Have you come out with swords and cudgels as against a brigand? When I was daily with you in the Temple you did not lift your hand against me; but this is your hour, and the power of darkness is here."

Judas had found a way to betray Jesus in such a way that the authorities could come upon him when the crowd were not there. He knew that Jesus was in the habit of going at nights to the garden on the hill, and there he led the emissaries of the Sanhedrin. The captain of the Temple, or the Sagan, as he was called, was the official who was responsible for the good order of the Temple; the captains of the Temple here referred to were his lieutenants who were responsible for carrying out the actual arrest of Jesus. When a disciple met a beloved Rabbi, he laid his right hand on the Rabbi's left shoulder and his left hand on the right shoulder and kissed him. It was the kiss of a disciple to a beloved master that Judas used as a sign of betrayal.

There were four different parties involved in this arrest, and their actions and reactions are very significant.

(i) There was Judas the traitor. He was the man who had abandoned God and entered into a league with Satan. It is only when a man has put God out of his life and taken Satan in, that he can sink to selling Christ.

(ii) There were the Jews who had come to arrest Jesus. They were the men who were blind to God. When God incarnate came to this earth, all that they could think of was how to hustle him to a cross. They had so long chosen their own way and shut their ears to the voice of God and their eyes to his guidance that in the end they could not recognise him when he came. It is a terrible thing to be blind and deaf to God. As Mrs. Browning wrote,

"I too have strength--

Strength to behold him and not worship him,

Strength to fall from him and not to cry to him."

God save us from a strength like that!

(iii) There were the disciples. They were the men who for the moment had forgotten God. Their world had fallen in and they were sure the end had come. The last thing they remembered at that moment was God; the only thing they thought of was the terrible situation into which they had come. Two things happen to the man who forgets God and leaves him out of the situation. He becomes utterly terrified and completely disorganized. He loses the power to face life and to cope with it. In the time of trial, life is unlivable without God.

(iv) There was Jesus. And Jesus was the one person in the whole scene who remembered God. The amazing thing about him in the last days was his absolute serenity once Gethsemane was over. In those days, even at his arrest, it was he who seemed to be in control; and even at his trial, it was he who was the judge. The man who walks with God can cope with any situation and look any foe in the eyes, unbowed and unafraid. It is he, and he alone, who can ultimately say,

"In the fell clutch of circumstance,

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbow'd.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul."

It is only when a man has bowed to God that he can talk and act like a conqueror.

MOCKING AND SCOURGING AND TRIAL ( Luke 22:63-71 )

22:63-71 The men who were holding Jesus mocked him and beat him. They blindfolded him and asked him, "Prophesy! Who is it who hit you?" And many another insulting word they spoke to him.

During the night Jesus had been brought before the High Priest. That was a private and unofficial examination. Its purpose was for the authorities to gloat over him and, if possible, to trip him up in cross-examination so that a charge could be formulated against him. After that, he was handed over to the Temple police for safe-keeping, and they played their cruel jests upon him. When the morning came, he was taken before the Sanhedrin.

The Sanhedrin was the supreme court of the Jews. In particular it had complete jurisdiction over all religious and theological matters. It was composed of seventy members. Scribes, Rabbis and Pharisees, priests and Sadducees, and elders were all represented on it. It could not meet during the hours of darkness. That is why they held Jesus until the morning before they brought him before it. It could meet only in the Hall of Hewn Stone in the Temple court. The High Priest was its president.

We possess the rules of procedure of the Sanhedrin. Perhaps they are only the ideal which was never fully carried out; but at least they allow us to see what the Jews, at their best, conceived that the Sanhedrin should be and how far their actions fell short of their own ideals in the trial of Jesus. The court sat in a semi-circle, in which every member could see every other member. Facing the court stood the prisoner dressed in mourning dress. Behind him sat the rows of the students and disciples of the Rabbis. They might speak in defence of the prisoner but not against him. Vacancies in the court were probably filled by co-option from these students. All charges must be supported by the evidence of two witnesses independently examined. A member of the court might speak against the prisoner, and then change his mind and speak for him, but not vice-versa. When a verdict was due, each member had to give his individual judgment, beginning at the youngest and going on to the most senior. For acquittal a majority of one was all that was necessary; for condemnation there must be a majority of at least two. Sentence of death could never be carried out on the day on which it was given; a night must elapse so that the court might sleep on it, so that, perchance, their condemnation might turn to mercy. The whole procedure was designed for mercy; and, even from Luke's summary account, it is clear that the Sanhedrin, when it tried Jesus, was far from keeping its own rules and regulations.

It is to be very carefully noted that the charge the Sanhedrin finally produced against Jesus was one of blasphemy. To claim to be the Son of God was an insult to God's majesty and therefore blasphemy, and punishable by death.

It is the tragic fact that when Jesus asked for love he did not even receive simple justice. It is the glorious fact that Jesus, even when he had emerged from a night of malignant questioning, even when he had been mocked and buffeted and scourged, still had utter confidence that he would be set down at the right hand of God and that his triumph was sure. His faith defied the facts. He never for a moment believed that men in the end could defeat the purposes of God.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

And being in an agony,.... Or in a conflict, and combat; that is, with thee devil, who now appeared visibly to him, in an horrible form: after his temptations in the wilderness Satan left him for a season, till another opportunity should offer; and now it did; now the prince of this world came to him; see Luke 4:13 and attacked him in a garden, where the first onset on human nature was made: and now began the battle between the two combatants, the serpent, and the seed of the woman; which issued in the destruction of Satan, and thee recovery of mankind. The Arabic version leaves out this clause; and the Syriac version renders it, "being in fear"; and to the same purpose are the Persic and Ethiopic versions; that is, of death; and must be understood of a sinless fear of death in his human nature, to which death, being a dissolution of it, must be disagreeable; though not death, barely considered, was the cause of this fear, distress, and agony he was in; but as it was to be inflicted on him for the sins of his people, which he bore, and as it was the curse of the law, and the effect of divine wrath and displeasure:

he prayed more earnestly; repeating the words he had said before with great eagerness and importunity, with intenseness of mind, and fervour of Spirit, with strong crying, and tears to him that was able to save him from death, Hebrews 5:7

and his sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground. This account of Christ's bloody sweat is only given by Luke, who being a physician, as is thought, more diligently recorded things which belonged to his profession to take cognizance of; nor should it be any objection to the truth and credibility of this fact, that it is not mentioned by the other evangelists, since it is no unusual thing with them for one to record that which is omitted by another; nor that this is wanting in some Greek and Latin copies, as Jerom w and Hilary x observe; since it was expunged, as is supposed, either by some orthodox persons, who weakly thought it might seem to favour the Arians, who denied that Christ was of the same impassible nature with the Father; or rather by the Armenians, or by a set of men called "Aphthartodocetae", who asserted the human nature of Christ to be incorruptible: but certain it is, that it is in the most ancient and approved copies, and in all the Oriental versions, and therefore to be retained; to which may be added, that it is taken notice of, not to mention others, by those two early writers, Justin Martyr y, and Irenaeus z; nor should its being so strange and unusual a sweat at all discredit the history of it, since there have been instances of this kind arising from various causes; and if there had been none, since the case of our Lord was singular, it ought to be credited. This bloody sweat did not arise from a cachexy, or ill state of body, which has sometimes been the cause of it, as Aristotle observes, who says a, that the blood sometimes becomes sanious, and so serous, insomuch that some have been covered with a "bloody sweat": and in another place he says b, that through an ill habit of body it has happened to some, that they have sweat a bloody excrement. Bartholinus produces instances in plagues and fevers c; but nothing of this kind appears in Christ, whose body was hale and robust, free from distempers and diseases, as it was proper it should, in order to do the work, and endure the sufferings he did; nor did it arise from any external heat, or a fatiguing journey. The above writer d a relates, from Actuarius, a story of a young man that had little globes of blood upon his skin, by sweat, through the heat of the sun, and a laborious journey. Christ's walk from Jerusalem to the garden was but a short one; and it was in the night when he had this sweat, and a cold night too; see John 18:18, it rather arose from the agony in which he was, before related: persons in an agony, or fit of trembling, sweat much, as Aristotle observes e; but to sweat blood is unusual. This might be occasioned by his vehement striving and wrestling with God in prayer, since the account follows immediately upon that; and might be owing to his strong cries, to the intenseness and fervour of his mind, and the commotion of the animal spirits, which was now very great, as some have thought; or, as others, to the fear of death, as it was set before him in so dreadful a view, and attended with such horrible circumstances. Thuanus f, a very grave and credible historian, reports of a governor of a certain garrison, who being, by a stratagem, decoyed from thence, and taken captive, and threatened with an ignominious death, was so affected with it, that he sweat a "bloody sweat" all over his body. And the same author g relates of a young man of Florence, who being, by the order of Pope Sixtus the Fifth, condemned, as he was led along to be executed, through the vehemence of his grief discharged blood instead of sweat, all over his body: and Maldonate, upon this passage, reports, that he had heard it from some who saw, or knew it, that at Paris, a man, robust, and in good health, hearing that a capital sentence was pronounced upon him, was, at once, all over in a bloody sweat: which instances show, that grief, surprise, and fear, have sometimes had such an effect on men; but it was not mere fear of death, and trouble of mind, concerning that, which thus wrought on our Lord, but the sense he had of the sins of his people, which were imputed to him, and the curse of the righteous law of God, which he endured, and especially the wrath of God, which was let into his soul: though some have thought this was owing to the conflict Christ had with the old serpent the devil; who, as before observed, now appeared to him in a frightful forth: and very remarkable is the passage which Dr. Lightfoot, and others, have cited from Diodorus Siculus, who reports of a certain country, that there are serpents in it, by whose bites are procured very painful deaths; and that grievous pains seize the person bitten, and also "a flow of sweat like blood". And other writers h make mention of a kind of asp, or serpent, called "Haemorrhois"; which, when it bites a man, causes him to sweat blood: and such a bloody sweat it should seem was occasioned by the bite of the old serpent Satan, now nibbling at Christ's heel, which was to be bruised by him: but of all the reasons and causes of this uncommon sweat, that of Clotzius is the most strange, that it should arise from the angels comforting and strengthening him, and from the cheerfulness and fortitude of his mind. This writer observes, that as fear and sorrow congeal the blood, alacrity and fortitude move it; and being moved, heat it, and drive it to the outward parts, and open a way for it through the pores: and this he thinks may be confirmed from the fruit and effect of Christ's prayer, which was very earnest, and was heard, as is said in Hebrews 5:7 when he was delivered from fear; which deliverance produced joy, and this joy issued in the bloody sweat. Some think the words do not necessarily imply, that this sweat was blood, or that there was blood in it; only that his sweat, as it came out of his body, and fell on the ground, was so large, and thick, and viscous, that it looked like drops, or clots of blood; but the case rather seems to be this, that the pores of Christ's body were so opened, that along with sweat came out blood, which flowed from him very largely; and as it fell on the ground, he being fallen on his face to the earth, it was so congealed by the cold in the night season, that it became really, as the word signifies, clots of blood upon the earth. The Persic version, different from all others, reads, "his tears, like blood, fell by drops upon the ground". This agony, and bloody sweat of Christ, prove the truth of his human nature; the sweat shows that he had a true and real body, as other men; the anxiety of his mind, that he had a reasonable soul capable of grief and sorrow, as human souls are; and they also prove his being made sin and a curse for us, and his sustaining our sins, and the wrath of God: nor could it be at all unsuitable to him, and unworthy of him, to sweat in this manner, whose blood was to be shed for the sins of his people, and who came by blood and water, and from whom both were to flow; signifying, that both sanctification and justification are from him.

w Advers. Pelag. l. 2. fol. 96. F. x De Trinitate, l. 10. p. 155. y Dialog. cum Tryph. p. 331. z Adv. Haeres. l. 3. c. 32. a De Hist. Animal. l. 3. c. 19. b De Part. Animal. l. 3. c. 5. c De Cruce Hypomnem. 4. p. 185, 186. d lb. p. 184. e Problem, sect. 2. c. 26, 31. f Hist. sui Temporis, par. 1. l. 8. p. 804, 805. g lb. par. 4. l. 82. p. 69. h Solin, Polyhistor, c. 40, Isidor. Hispalens. Etymolog. l. 12. c. 4.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      39 And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him.   40 And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation.   41 And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed,   42 Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.   43 And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.   44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.   45 And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow,   46 And said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.

      We have here the awful story of Christ's agony in the garden, just before he was betrayed, which was largely related by the other evangelists. In it Christ accommodated himself to that part of his undertaking which he was now entering upon--the making of his soul an offering for sin. He afflicted his own soul with grief for the sin he was to satisfy for, and an apprehension of the wrath of God to which man had by sin made himself obnoxious, which he was pleased as a sacrifice to admit the impressions of, the consuming of a sacrifice with fire from heaven being the surest token of its acceptance. In it Christ entered the lists with the powers of darkness, gave them all the advantages they could desire, and yet conquered them.

      I. What we have in this passage which we had before is, 1. That when Christ went out, though it was in the night, and a long walk, his disciples (eleven of them, for Judas had given them the slip) followed him. Having continued with him hitherto in his temptations, they would not leave him now. 2. That he went to the place where he was wont to be private, which intimates that Christ accustomed himself to retirement, was often alone, to teach us to be so, for freedom of converse with God and our own hearts. Though Christ had no conveniency for retirement but a garden, yet he retired. This should particularly be our practice after we have been at the Lord's table; we have then work to do which requires us to be private. 3. That he exhorted his disciples to pray that, though the approaching trial could not be avoided, yet they might not in it enter into temptation to sin; that, when they were in the greatest fright and danger, yet they might not have any inclination to desert Christ, nor take a step towards it: "Pray that you may be kept from sin." 4. That he withdrew from them, and prayed himself; they had their errands at the throne of grace, and he had his, and therefore it was fit that they should pray separately, as sometimes, when they had joint errands, they prayed together. He withdrew about a stone's cast further into the garden, which some reckon about fifty of sixty paces, and there he kneeled down (so it is here) upon the bare ground; but the other evangelists say that afterwards he fell on his face, and there prayed that, if it were the will of God, this cup of suffering, this bitter cup, might be removed from him. This was the language of that innocent dread of suffering which, being really and truly man, he could not but have in his nature. 5. That he, knowing it to be his Father's will that he should suffer and die, and that, as the matter was now settled, it was necessary for our redemption and salvation, presently withdrew that petition, did not insist upon it, but resigned himself to his heavenly Father's will: "Nevertheless not my will be done, not the will of my human nature, but the will of God as it is written concerning me in the volume of the book, which I delight to do, let that be done," Psalms 40:7; Psalms 40:8. 6. That his disciples were asleep when he was at prayer, and when they should have been themselves praying, Luke 22:45; Luke 22:45. When he rose from prayer, he found them sleeping, unconcerned in his sorrows; but see what a favourable construction is here put upon it, which we had not in the other evangelists--they were sleeping for sorrow. The great sorrow they were in upon the mournful farewells their Master had been this evening giving them had exhausted their spirits, and made them very dull and heavy, which (it being now late) disposed them to sleep. This teaches us to make the best of our brethren's infirmities, and, if there be one cause better than another, charitably impute them to that. 7. That when he awoke them, then he exhorted them to pray (Luke 22:46; Luke 22:46): "Why sleep ye? Why do you allow yourselves to sleep? Rise and pray. Shake off your drowsiness, that you may be fit to pray, and pray for grace, that you may be able to shake off your drowsiness." This was like the ship-master's call to Jonah in a storm (Jonah 1:6): Arise, call upon thy God. When we find ourselves either by our outward circumstances or our inward dispositions entering into temptation, it concerns us to rise and pray, Lord, help me in this time of need. But,

      II. There are three things in this passage which we had not in the other evangelists:--

      1. That, when Christ was in his agony, there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him,Luke 22:43; Luke 22:43. (1.) It was an instance of the deep humiliation of our Lord Jesus that he needed the assistance of an angel, and would admit it. The influence of the divine nature withdrew for the present, and then, as to his human nature, he was for a little while lower than the angels, and was capable of receiving help from them. (2.) When he was not delivered from his sufferings, yet he was strengthened and supported under them, and that was equivalent. If God proportion the shoulders to the burden, we shall have no reason to complain, whatever he is pleased to lay upon us. David owns this a sufficient answer to his prayer, in the day of trouble, that God strengthened him with strength in his soul, and so does the son of David, Psalms 138:3. (3.) The angels ministered to the Lord Jesus in his sufferings. He could have had legions of them to rescue him; nay, this one could have done it, could have chased and conquered the whole band of men that came to take him; but he made use of his ministration only to strengthen him; and the very visit which this angel made him now in his grief, when his enemies were awake and his friends asleep, was such a seasonable token of the divine favour as would be a very great strengthening to him. Yet this was not all: he probably said something to him to strengthen him; put him in mind that his sufferings were in order to his Father's glory, to his own glory, and to the salvation of those that were given him, represented to him the joy set before him, the seed he should see; with these and the like suggestions he encouraged him to go on cheerfully; and what is comforting is strengthening. Perhaps he did something to strengthen him, wiped away his sweat and tears, perhaps ministered some cordial to him, as after his temptation, or, it may be, took him by the arm, and helped him off the ground, or bore him up when he was ready to faint away; and in these services of the angel the Holy Spirit was enischyon auton--putting strength into him; for so the word signifies. It pleased the Lord to bruise him indeed; yet did he plead against him with his great power? No, but he put strength in him (Job 23:6), as he had promised, Psalms 89:21; Isaiah 49:8; Isaiah 50:7.

      2. That, being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly,Luke 22:44; Luke 22:44. As his sorrow and trouble grew upon him, he grew more importunate in prayer; not that there was before any coldness or indifferency in his prayers, but there was now a greater vehemency in them, which was expressed in his voice and gesture. Note, Prayer, though never out of season, is in a special manner seasonable when we are in an agony; and the stronger our agonies are the more lively and frequent our prayers should be. Now it was that Christ offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears, and was heard in that he feared (Hebrews 5:7), and in his fear wrestled, as Jacob with the angel.

      3. That, in this agony, his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Sweat came in with sin, and was a branch of the curse, Genesis 3:19. And therefore, when Christ was made sin and a curse for us, he underwent a grievous sweat, that in the sweat of his face we might eat bread, and that he might sanctify and sweeten all our trials to us. There is some dispute among the critics whether this sweat is only compared to drops of blood, being much thicker than drops of sweat commonly are, the pores of the body being more than ordinarily opened, or whether real blood out of the capillary veins mingled with it, so that it was in colour like blood, and might truly be called a bloody sweat; the matter is not great. Some reckon this one of the times when Christ shed his blood for us, for without the shedding of blood there is no remission. Every pore was as it were a bleeding wound, and his blood stained all his raiment. This showed the travail of his soul. He was now abroad in the open air, in a cool season, upon the cold ground, far in the night, which, one would think, had been enough to strike in a sweat; yet now he breaks out into a sweat, which bespeaks the extremity of the agony he was in.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

Gethsemane

February 8th, 1863 by C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892)

"And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." Luke 22:44 .

Few had fellowship with the sorrows of Gethsemane. The majority of the disciples were not there. They were not sufficiently advanced in grace to be admitted to behold the mysteries of "the agony." Occupied with the Passover feast at their own houses, they represent the many who live upon the letter, but are mere babes and sucklings as to the spirit of the gospel. The walls of Gethsemane fitly typify that weakness in grace which effectually shuts in the deeper marvels of communion from the gaze of ordinary believers. To twelve, nay, to eleven only was the privilege given to enter Gethsemane and see this great sight. Out of the eleven, eight were left at some distance; they had fellowship, but not of that intimate sort to which the men greatly beloved are admitted. Only three highly favored ones, who had been with him on the mount of transfiguration, and had witnessed the life-giving miracle in the house of Jairus only these three could approach the veil of his mysterious sorrow: within that veil even these must not intrude; a stone's-cast distance must be left between. He must tread the wine-press alone, and of the people there must be none with him. Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, represent the few eminent, experienced, grace-taught saints, who may be written down as "Fathers;" these having done business on great waters, can in some degree, measure the huge Atlantic waves of their Redeemer's passion; having been much alone with him, they can read his heart far better than those who merely see him amid the crowd. To some selected spirits it is given, for the good of others, and to strengthen them for some future, special, and tremendous conflict, to enter the inner circle and hear the pleadings of the suffering High priest; they have fellowship with him in his sufferings, and are made conformable unto his death. Yet I say, even these, the elect out of the elect, these choice and peculiar favourites among the kings courtiers, even these cannot penetrate the secret places of the Savior's woe, so as to comprehend all his agonies. "Thine unknown sufferings" is the remarkable expression of the Greek liturgy; for there is an inner chamber in his grief, shut out from human knowledge and fellowship. Was it not here that Christ was more than ever an "Unspeakable gift" to us? Is not Watts right when he sings

"And all the unknown joys he gives, Were bought with agonies unknown."

Since it would not be possible for any believer, however experienced, to know for himself all that our Lord endured in the place of the olivepress, when he was crushed beneath the upper and the nether mill-stone of mental suffering and hellish malice, it is clearly far beyond the preacher's capacity to set it forth to you. Jesus himself must give you access to the wonders of Gethsemane: as for me, I can but invite you to enter the garden, bidding you put your shoes from off your feet, for the place whereon we stand is holy ground. I am neither Peter, nor James, nor John, but one who would fain like them drink of the Master's cup, and be baptized with his baptism. I have hitherto advanced only so far as yonder band of eight, but there I have listened to the deep groanings of the man of sorrows. Some of you, my venerable friends, may have learned far more than I; but you will not refuse to hear again the roarings of the many waters which strove to quench the love of the Great Husband of our souls. Several matters will require our brief consideration. Come Holy Spirit, breathe light into our thoughts, life into our words. I. Come hither and behold the SAVIOR'S UNUTTERABLE WOE. The emotions of that dolorous night are expressed by several words in Scripture. John describes him as saying four days before his passion, "Now is my soul troubled," as he marked the gathering clouds he hardly knew where to turn himself, and cried out "What shall I say?" Matthew writes of him, "he began to be sorrowful and very heavy." Upon the word ademonein translated "very heavy," Goodwin remarks that there was a distraction in the Savior's agony since the root of the word signifies "separated from the people men in distraction, being separated from mankind." What a thought, my brethren, that our blessed Lord should be driven to the very verge of distraction by the intensity of his anguish. Matthew represents the Savior himself as saying "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." Here the word Perilupos means encompassed, encircled, overwhelmed with grief. "He was plunged head and ears in sorrow and had no breathing-hole," is the strong expression of Goodwin. Sin leaves no cranny for comfort to enter, and therefore the sin-bearer must be entirely immersed in woe. Clark records that he began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy. In this case thambeisthai, with the prefix ek, shows extremity of amazement like that of Moses when he did exceedingly fear and quake. O blessed Savior, how can we bear to think of thee as a man astonished and alarmed! Yet was it even so when the terrors of God set themselves in array against thee. Luke uses the strong language of my text "being in an agony." These expressions, each of them worthy to be the theme of a discourse, are quite sufficient to show that the grief of the Savior was of the most extraordinary character; well justifying the prophetic exclamation "Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which was done unto me." He stands before us peerless in misery. None are molested by the powers of evil as he was; as if the powers of hell had given commandment to their legions, "Fight neither with small nor great, save only with the king himself." Should we profess to understand all the sources of our Lord's agony, wisdom would rebuke us with the question "Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in search of the depths?" We cannot do more than look at the revealed causes of grief. It partly arose from the horror of his soul when fully comprehending the meaning of sin. Brethren, when you were first convinced of sin and saw it as a thing exceeding sinful, though your perception of its sinfulness was but faint compared with its real heinousness, yet horror took hold upon you. Do you remember those sleepless nights? Like the Psalmist, you said "My bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long, for day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture is turned into the drought of summer." Some of us can remember when our souls chose strangling rather than life; when if the shadows of death could have covered us from the wrath of God we would have been too glad to sleep in the grave that we might not make our bed in hell. Our blessed Lord saw sin in its natural blackness. He had a most distinct perception of its treasonable assault upon his God, its murderous hatred to himself, and its destructive influence upon mankind. Well might horror take hold upon him, for a sight of sin must be far more hideous than a sight of hell, which is but its offspring. Another deep fountain of grief was found in the fact that Christ now assumed more fully his official position with regard to sin. He was now made sin. Hear the word! he, who knew no sin, was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. In that night the words of Isaiah were fulfilled "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Now he stood as the sin-bearer, the substitute accepted by Divine justice to bear that we might never bear the whole of wrath divine. At that hour heaven looked on him as standing in the sinner's stead, and treated as sinful man had richly deserved to be treated. Oh! dear friends, when the immaculate Lamb of God found himself in the place of the guilty, when he could not repudiate that place because he had voluntarily accepted it in order to save his chosen, what must his soul have felt, how must his perfect nature have been shocked at such close association with iniquity? We believe that at this time, our Lord had a very clear view of all the shame and suffering of his crucifixion. The agony was but one of the first drops of the tremendous shower which discharged itself upon his head. He foresaw the speedy coming of the traitor-disciple, the seizure by the officers, the mock-trials before the Sanhedrim, and Pilate, and Herod, the scourging and buffeting, the crown of thorns, the shame, the spitting. All these rose up before his mind, and, as it is a general law of our nature that the foresight of trial is more grievous than trial itself, we can conceive how it was that he who answered not a word when in the midst of the conflict, could not restrain himself from strong crying and tears in the prospect of it. Beloved friends, if you can revive before your mind's eye the terrible incidents of his death the hounding through the streets of Jerusalem, the nailing to the cross, the fever, the thirst, and, above all, forsaking of his God, you cannot marvel that he began to be very heavy, and was sore amazed. But possibly a yet more fruitful tree of bitterness was this that now his Father began to withdraw his presence from him. The shadow of that great eclipse began to fall upon his spirit when he knelt in that cold midnight amidst the olives of Gethsemane. The sensible comforts which had cheered his spirit were taken away; that blessed application of promises which Christ Jesus needed as a man, was removed, all that we understand by the term "consolations of God" were hidden from his eyes. He was left single-handed in his weakness to contend for the deliverance of man. The Lord stood by as if he were an indifferent spectator, or rather, as if he were an adversary, he wounded him "with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one." But in our judgment the fiercest heat of the Savior's suffering in the garden lay in the temptations of Satan. That hour above any time in his life, even beyond the forty days' conflict in the wilderness, was the time of his temptation. "This is your hour and the power of darkness." Now could he emphatically say, "The prince of this world cometh." This was his last hand-to-hand fight with all the hosts of hell, and here must he sweat great drops of blood before the victory can be achieved. We have glanced at the fountains of the great deep which were broken up when the floods of grief deluged the Redeemer's soul. Brethren, this one lesson ere we pass from the contemplation. "We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." Let us reflect that no suffering can be unknown to him. We do but run with footmen he had to contend with horsemen; we do but wade up to our ankles in shallow streams of sorrow he had to buffet with the swellings of Jordan. He will never fail to succor his people when tempted; even as it was said of old, "In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them." II. Turn we next to contemplate THE TEMPTATION OF OUR LORD. At the outset of his career, the serpent began to nibble at the heel of the promised deliverer; and now as the time approached when the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, that old dragon made a desperate attempt upon his great destroyer. It is not possible for us to lift the veil where revelation has permitted it to fall, but we can form some faint idea of the suggestions with which Satan tempted our Lord. Let us, however, remark by way of caution, before we attempt to paint this picture, that whatever Satan may have suggested to our Lord, his perfect nature did not in any degree whatever submit to it so as to sin. The temptations were, doubtless, of the very foulest character, but they left no speck or flaw upon him, who remained still the fairest among ten thousand. The prince of this world came, but he had nothing in Christ. He struck the sparks, but they did not fall, as in our case, upon dry tinder; they fell as into the sea, and were quenched at once. He hurled the fiery arrows, but they could not even scar the flesh of Christ; they smote upon the buckler of his perfectly righteous nature, and they fell off with their points broken, to the discomfiture of the adversary. But what, think you, were these temptations? It strikes me, from some hints given, that they were somewhat as follows there was, first, a temptation to leave the work unfinished; we may gather this from the prayer "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me." "Son of God," the tempter said, "is it so? Art thou really called to bear the sin of man? Hath God said, 'I have laid help upon one that is mighty,' and art thou he, the chosen of God, to bear all this load? Look at thy weakness! Thou sweatest, even now, great drops of blood; surely thou art not he whom the Father hath ordained to be mighty to save; or if thou be, what wilt thou win by it? What will it avail thee? Thou hast glory enough already. See what miscreants they are for whom thou art to offer up thyself a sacrifice. Thy best friends are asleep about thee when most thou needest their comfort; thy treasurer, Judas, is hastening to betray thee for the price of a common slave. The world for which thou sacrificest thyself will cast out thy name as evil, and thy Church, for which thou dost pay the ransom-price, what is it worth? A company of mortals! Thy divinity could create the like any moment it pleaseth thee; why needest thou, then, pour out thy soul unto death?" Such arguments would Satan use; the hellish craft of one who had then been thousands of years tempting men, would know how to invent all manner of mischief. He would pour the hottest coals of hell upon the Savior. It was in struggling with this temptation, among others, that, being in an agony, our Savior prayed more earnestly. Scripture implies that our Lord was assailed by the fear that his strength would not be sufficient. He was heard in that he feared. How, then, was he heard? An angel was sent unto him strengthening him. His fear, then, was probably produced by a sense of weakness. I imagine that the foul fiend would whisper in his ear "Thou! thou endure to be smitten of God and abhorred of men! Reproach hath broken thy heart already; how wilt thou bear to be publicly put to shame and driven without the city as an unclean thing? How wilt thou bear to see thy weeping kinsfolk and thy broken-hearted mother standing at the foot of thy cross? Thy tender and sensitive spirit will quail under it. As for thy body, it is already emaciated; thy long fastings have brought thee very low; thou wilt become a prey to death long ere thy work is done. Thou wilt surely fail. God hath forsaken thee. Now will they persecute and take thee; they will give up thy soul to the lion, and thy darling to the power of the dog." Then would he picture all the sufferings of crucifixion, and say, "Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong in the day when the Lord shall deal with thee?" The temptation of Satan was not directed against the Godhead, but the manhood of Christ, and therefore the fiend would probably dwell upon the feebleness of man. "Didst thou not say thyself, 'I am a worm and no man, the reproach of men and the despised of the people?' How wilt thou bear it when the wrath-clouds of God gather about thee? The tempest will surely shipwreck all thy hopes. It cannot be; thou canstnot drink of this cup, nor be baptized wiit this baptism." In this manner, we think, was our Master tried. But see he yields not to it. Being in an agony, which word means in a wrest ring, he struggles with the tempter like Jacob with the angel. "Nay," saith he, "I will not be subdued by taunts of my weakness; I am strong in the strength of my Godhead, I will overcome thee yet." Yet was the temptation so awful, that, in order to master it, his mental depression caused him to "sweat as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." Possibly, also, the temptation may have arisen from a suggestion that he was utterly forsaken. I do not know there may be sterner trials than this, but surely this is one of the worst, to be utterly forsaken. "See," said Satan, as he hissed it out between his teeth "see, thou hast a friend nowhere! Look up to heaven, thy Father hath shut up the bowels of his compassion against thee. Not an angel in thy Father's courts will stretch out his hand to help thee. Look thou yonder, not one of those spirits who honored thy birth will interfere to protect thy life. All heaven is false to thee; thou art left alone. And as for earth, do not all men thirst for thy blood? Will not the Jew be gratified to see thy flesh torn with nails, and will not the Roman gloat himself when thou, the King of the Jews, art fastened to the cross? Thou hast no friend among the nations; the high and mighty scoff at thee, and the poor thrust out their tongues in derision. Thou hadst not where to lay thy head when thou wast in thy best estate; thou hast no place now where shelter will be given thee. See the companions with whom thou hast taken sweet counsel, what are they worth? Son of Mary, see there thy brother James, see there thy loved disciple John, and thy bold Apostle Peter they sleep, they sleep; and yonder eight, how the cowards sleep when thou art in thy sufferings! And where are the four hundred others? They have forgotten thee; they will be at their farms and their merchandize by morning. Lo! thou hast no friend left in heaven or earth. All hell is against thee. I have stirred up mine infernal den. I have sent my missives throughout all regions summoning every prince of darkness to set upon thee this night, and we will spare no arrows, we will use all our infernal might to overwhelm thee; and what wilt thou do, thou solitary one?" It may be, this was the temptation; I think it was, because the appearance of an angel unto him strengthening him removed that fear. He was heard in that he feared; he was no more alone, but heaven was with him. It may be that this is the reason of his coming three times to his disciples as Hart puts it

"Backwards and forwards thrice he ran As if he sought some help from man."

He would see for himself whether it was really true that all men had forsaken him; he found them all asleep; but perhaps he gained some faint comfort from the thought that they were sleeping, not from treachery, but from sorrow, the spirit indeed was willing, but the flesh was weak. We think Satan also assaulted our Lord with a bitter taunt indeed. You know in what guise the tempter can dress it, and how bitterly sarcastic he can make the insinuation "Ah! thou wilt not be able to achieve the redemption of thy people. Thy grand benevolence will prove a mockery, and thy beloved ones will perish. Thou shalt not prevail to save them from my grasp. Thy scattered sheep shall surely be my prey. Son of David, I am a match for thee; thou canst not deliver out of my hand. Many of thy chosen have entered heaven on the strength of thine atonement, but I will drag them thence, and quench the stars of glory; I will thin the courts of heaven of the choristers of God, for thou wilt not fulfill thy suretyship; thou canst not do it. Thou art not able to bring up all this great people; they will perish yet. See, are not the sheep scattered now that the Shepherd is smitten? They will all forget thee. Thou wilt never see of the travail of thy soul. Thy desired end will never be reached. Thou wilt be for ever the man that began to build but was not able to finish." Perhaps this is more truly the reason why Christ went three times to look at his disciples. You have seen a mother; she is very faint, weary with a heavy sickness, but she labors under a sore dread that her child will die. She has started from her couch, upon which disease had thrown her, to snatch a moment's rest. She gazes anxiously upon her child. She marks the faintest sign of recovery. But she is sore sick herself, and cannot remain more than an instant from her own bed. She cannot sleep, she tosses painfully, for her thoughts wander; she rises to gaze again "How art thou, my child, how art thou? Are those palpitations of thy heart less violent? Is thy pulse more gentle? "But, alas! she is faint, and she must go to her bed again, yet she can get no rest. She will return again and again to watch the loved one. So, methinks, Christ looked upon Peter, and James, and John, as much as to say, "No, they are not all lost yet; there are three left," and, looking upon them as the type of all the Church, he seemed to say "No, no; I will overcome; I will get the mastery; I will struggle even unto blood; I will pay the ransom-price, and deliver my darlings from their foe." Now these, methinks, were his temptations. If you can form a fuller idea of what they were than this, then right happy shall I be. With this one lesson I leave the point "Pray that ye enter not into temptation." This is Christ's own expression; his own deduction from his trial. You have all read, dear friends, John Bunyan's picture of Christian fighting, with Apollyon. That master-painter has sketched it to the very life. He says, though "this sore combat lasted for above half a day, even till Christian was almost quite spent, I never saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant look, till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged sword; then indeed, he did smile and look upward! But it was the dreadfullest sight I ever saw." That is the meaning of that prayer, "Lead us not into temptation." Oh you that go recklessly where you are tempted, you that pray for afflictions and I have known some silly enough to do that you that put yourselves where you tempt the devil to tempt you, take heed from the Master's own example. He sweats great drops of blood when he is tempted. Oh! pray God to spare you such trial. Pray this morning and every day, "Lead me not into temptation." III. Behold, dear brethren, THE BLOODY SWEAT. We read, that "he sweat as it were great drops of blood." Hence a few writers have supposed that the sweat was not actually blood, but had the appearance of it. That interpretation, however, has been rejected by most commentators, from Augustine downward, and it is generally held that the words "as it were" do not only set forth likeness to blood, but signify that it was actually and literally blood. We find the same idiom used in the text "We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father." Now, clearly, this does not mean that Christ was like the only-begotten of the Father, since he is really so. So that generally this expression of Holy Scripture sets forth, not a mere likeness to a thing, but the very thing itself. We believe, then, that Christ did really sweat blood. This phenomenon, though somewhat unusual, has been witnessed in other persons. There are several cases on record, some in the old medicine books of Galen, and others of more recent date, of persons who after long weakness, under fear of death have sweat blood. But this case is altogether one by itself for several reasons. If you will notice, he not only sweat blood, but it was in great drops; the blood coagulated, and formed large masses. I cannot better express what is meant than by the word "gouts" big, heavy drops. This has not been seen in any case. Some slight effusions of blood have been known in cases of persons who were previously enfeebled, but great drops never. When it is said "falling to the ground" it shows their copiousness, so that they not only stood upon the surface and were sucked up by his garments till he became like the red heifer which was slaughtered on that very spot, but the drops fell to the ground. Here he stands unrivalled. He was a man in good health, only about thirty years of age, and was laboring under no fear of death; but the mental pressure arising from his struggle with temptation, and the straining of all his strength, in order to baffle the temptation of Satan, so forced his frame to an unnatural excitement, that his pores sent forth great drops of blood which fell down to the ground. This proves how tremendous must have been the weight of sin when it was able so to crush the Savior that he distilled drops of blood! This proves too, my brethren, the mighty power of his love. It is a very pretty observation of old Isaac Ambrose that the gum which exudes from the tree without cutting is always the best. This precious camphire-tree yielded most sweet spices when it was wounded under the knotty whips, and when it was pierced by the nails on the cross; but see, it giveth forth its best spice when there is no whip, no nail, no wound. This sets forth the voluntariness of Christ's sufferings, since without a lance the blood flowed freely. No need to put on the leech, or apply the knife; it flows spontaneously. No need for the rulers to cry "Spring up, O well;" of itself it flows in crimson torrents. Dearly beloved friends, if men suffer some frightful pain of mind I am not acquainted with the medical matter apparently the blood rushes to the heart. The cheeks are pale; a fainting fit comes on; the blood has gone inward, as if to nourish the inner man while passing through its trial. But see our Savior in his agony; he is so utterly oblivious of self, that instead of his agony driving his blood to the heart to nourish himself, it drives it outward to bedew the earth. The agony of Christ, inasmuch as it pours him out upon the ground, pictures the fullness of the offering which he made for men. Do you not perceive, my brethren, how intense must have been the wrestling through which he passed, and will you not hear its voice to you? "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin." It has been the lot of some of us to have sore temptations else we did not know how to teach others so sore that in wrestling against them the cold, clammy sweat has stood upon our brow. The place will never be forgotten by me a lonely spot; where, musing upon my God, an awful rush of blasphemy went over my soul, till I would have preferred death to the trial; and I fell on my knees there and then, for the agony was awful, while my hand was at my mouth to keep the blasphemies from being spoken. Once let Satan be permitted really to try you with a temptation to blasphemy, and you will never forget it, though you live till your hairs are blanched; or let him attack you with some lust, and though you hate and loathe the very thought of it, and would lose your right arm sooner than indulge in it, yet it will come, and hunt, and persecute, and torment you. Wrestle against it even unto sweat, my brethren, yea, even unto blood. None of you should say, "I could not help it; I was tempted." Resist till you sweat blood rather than sin. Do not say, "I was so pressed with it; and it so suited my natural temperament, that I could not help falling into it." Look at the great Apostle and High Priest of your profession, and sweat even to blood rather than yield to the great tempter of your souls. Pray that ye enter not into temptation, so that when ye enter into it ye may with confidence say, "Lord, I did not seek this, therefore help me through with it, for thy name's sake." IV. I want you, in the fourth place, to notice THE SAVIOR'S PRAYER. Dear friends, when we are tempted and desire to overcome, the best weapon is prayer. When you cannot use the sword and the shield, take to yourself the famous weapon of All-prayer. So your Savior did. Let us notice his prayer. It was lonely prayer. He withdrew even from his three best friends about a stone's cast. Believer, especially in temptation, be much in solitary prayer. As private prayer is the key to open heaven, so is it the key to shut the gates of hell. As it is a shield to prevent, so is it the sword with which to fight against temptation. Family-prayer, social prayer, prayer in the Church, will not suffice, these are very precious, but the best beaten spice will smoke in your censer in your private devotions, where no ear hears but God. Betake yourselves to solitude if you would overcome. Mark, too, it was humble prayer. Luke says he knelt, but another evangelist says he fell on his face. What! does the King fall on his face? Where, then, must be thy place, thou humble servant of the great Master? Doth the Prince fall flat to the ground? Where, then, wilt thou lie? What dust and ashes shall cover thy head? What sackcloth shall gird thy loins? Humility gives us good foot-hold in prayer. There is no hope of any real prevalence with God, who casteth down the proud, unless we abase ourselves that he may exalt us in due time. Further, it was filial prayer. Matthew describes him as saying "O my Father," and Mark puts it, "Abba, Father." You will find this always a stronghold in the day of trial to plead your adoption. Hence that prayer, in which it is written, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," begins with "Our Father which art in heaven." Plead as a child. You have no rights as a subject; you have forfeited them by your treason, but nothing can forfeit a child's right to a father's protection. Be not then ashamed to say, "My Father, hear my cry." Again, observe that it was persevering prayer. He prayed three times, using the same words. Be not content until you prevail. Be as the importunate widow, whose continual coming earned what her first supplication could not win. Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving. Further, see how it glowed to a red-hot heat it was earnest prayer. "He prayed more earnestly." What groans were those which were uttered by Christ! What tears, which welled up from the deep fountains of his nature! Make earnest supplication if you would prevail against the adversary. And last, it was the prayer of resignation. "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." Yield, and God yields. Let it be as God wills, and God will will it that it shall be for the best. Be thou perfectly content to leave the result of thy prayer in his hands, who knows when to give, and how to give, and what to give, and what to withhold. So pleading, earnestly, importunately, yet mingling with it humility and resignation, thou shalt yet prevail. Dear friends, we must conclude, turn to the last point with this as a practical lesson "Rise and pray." When the disciples were lying down they slept; sitting was the posture that was congenial to sleep. Rise; shake yourselves; stand up in the name of God; rise and pray. And if you are in temptation, be you more than ever you were in your life before, instant, passionate, importunate with God that he would deliver you in the day of your conflict. V. As time has failed us we close with the last point, which is, THE SAVIOR'S PREVALENCE. The cloud has passed away. Christ has knelt, and the prayer is over. "But," says one, "did Christ prevail in prayer?" Beloved, could we have any hope that he would prevail in heaven if he had not prevailed on earth? Should we not have had a suspicion that if his strong crying and tears had not been heard then, he would fail now? His prayers did speed, and therefore he is a good intercessor for us. "How was he heard?" The answer shall be given very briefly indeed. He was heard, I think, in three respects. The first gracious answer that was given him was, that his mind was suddenly rendered calm. What a difference there is between "My soul is exceeding sorrowful," his hurrying too and fro, his repetition of the prayer three times, the singular agitation that was upon him what a contrast between all these and his going forth to meet the traitor with "Betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?" Like a troubled sea before, and now as calm as when he himself said, "Peace be still," and the waves were quiet. You cannot know a profounder peace than that which reigned in the Savior when before Pilate he answered him not a word. He is calm to the last, as calm as though it were his day of triumph rather than his day of trouble. Now I think this was vouchsafed to him in answer to his prayer. He had sufferings perhaps more intense, but his mind was now quieted so as to meet them with greater deliberation. Like some men, who when they first hear the firing of the shots in a battle are all trepidation, but as the fight grows hotter and they are in greater danger, they are cool and collected; they are wounded, they are bleeding, they are dying; yet are they quiet as a summer's eve; the first young flush of trouble is gone, and they can meet the foe with peace so the Father heard the Savior's cry, and breathed such a profound peace into his soul, that it was like a river, and his righteousness like the waves of the sea. Next, we believe that he was answered by God strengthening him through an angel. How that was done we do not know. Probably it was by what the angel said, and equally likely is it that it was by what he did. The angel may have whispered the promises; pictured before his mind's eye the glory of his success; sketched his resurrection; pourtrayed the scene when his angels would bring his chariots from on high to bear him to his throne; revived before him the recollection of the time of his advent, the prospect when he should reign from sea to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth; and so have made him strong. Or, perhaps, by some unknown method God sent such power to our Christ, who had been like Samson with his locks shorn, that he suddenly received all the might and majestic energy that were needed for the terrific struggle. Then he walked out of the garden no more a worm and no man, but made strong with an invisible might that made him a match for all the armies that were round about him. A troop had overcome him, like Gad of old, but he overcame at last. Now he can dash through a troop; now he can leap over a wall. God has sent by his angel force from on high, and made the man Christ strong for battle and for victory. And I think we may conclude with saying, that God heard him in granting him now, not simply strength, but a real victory over Satan. I do not know whether what Adam Clarke supposes is correct, that in the garden Christ did pay more of the price than he did even on the cross; but I am quite convinced that they are very foolish who get to such refinement that they think the atonement was made on the cross, and nowhere else at all. We believe that it was made in the garden as well as on the cross; and it strikes me that in the garden one part of Christ's work was finished, wholly finished, and that was his conflict with Satan. I conceive that Christ had now rather to bear the absence of his Father's presence and the revilings of the people and the sons of men, than the temptations of the devil. I do think that these were over when he rose from his knees in prayer, when he lifted himself from the ground where he marked his visage in the clay in drops of blood. The temptation of Satan was then over, and he might have said concerning that part of the work "It is finished; broken is the dragon's head; I have overcome him." Perhaps in those few hours that Christ spent in the garden the whole energy of the agents of iniquity was concentrated and dissipated. Perhaps in that one conflict all that craft could invent, all that malice could devise, all that infernal practice could suggest, was tried on Christ, the devil having his chain loosened for that purpose, having Christ given up to him, as Job was, that he might touch him in his bones and in his flesh, yea, touch him in his heart and his soul, and vex him in his spirit. It may be that every devil in hell and every fiend of the pit was summoned, each to vent his own spite and to pour their united energy and malice upon the head of Christ. And there he stood, and he could have said as he stood up to meet the next adversary a devil in the form of man Judas "I come this day from Bozrah, with garments dyed red from Edom; I have trampled on my enemies, and overcome them once for all; now go I to bear man's sin and my Father's wrath, and to finish the work which he has given me to do." If this be so, Christ was then heard in that he feared; he feared the temptation of Satan, and he was delivered from it; he feared his own weakness, and he was strengthened; he feared his own trepidation of mind, and he was made calm. What shall we say, then, in conclusion, but this lesson. Does it not say "Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall have." Then if your temptations reach the most tremendous height and force, still lay hold of God in prayer and you shall prevail. Convinced sinner! that is a comfort for you. Troubled saint! that is a joy for you. To one and all of us is this lesson of this morning "Pray that ye enter not into temptation." If in temptation let us ask that Christ may pray for us that our faith fail not, and when we have passed through the trouble let us try to strengthen our brethren, even as Christ has strengthened us this day."

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

The last chapter gave in the judgment of present things, another world and eternal things in good and evil, the Lord's instruction for the disciples after the dealings of grace in Luke 15:1-32, and this as the only true power of estimating the present world (that is to say, by the standard of the future the eternal future of God. In order to complete that picture, our Lord gave a sight not only of one blessed man who had lived in what is eternal, while experiencing the bitterness of this evil age, but of another who lived only for the present, despising God's message about eternity.

In Luke 17:1-37 there follow further lessons communicated still to the disciples; and first of all, a solemn warning as to stumbling-blocks. It is possible that offences will come; but woe to him through whom they come! Next, while there is a strong exhortation against stumbling others, there is an equally urgent call to forgive others. We are to be firm against ourselves; we are to be firm for our brethren, even where they touch ourselves. Therefore the apostles, feeling the great difficulty, as indeed it is impossible to nature so to walk, ask of the Lord to increase their faith. The Lord intimates in reply that faith grows, and even in the presence of difficulty. It seeks what belongs not to nature, but to God. On the other hand, in the midst of any answers that God may vouchsafe, and of all service rendered to Him, the admonitory word is added that when we have done all things not when we have failed we are unprofitable servants. Such is the true language and feeling for a disciple's heart. This closes the direct teaching here addressed to His followers (Verses Luke 17:1-10.)

Our Lord is next (ver. Luke 17:11-19) presented in a very characteristic way, showing that faith does not necessarily wait for a change of dispensation. He had been laying, down the duty of faith in many various forms in the early verses of this chapter. It is here shown that faith always finds its place of blessing with God and proves Him superior to forms; but God is only found in Jesus.

In the ten lepers this blessed principle is brought out clearly. The healing of the Lord was equally manifest in all; but there is a power superior to that which cleanses the body, even were it desperately leprous. The power that belongs to and comes out from God is but a small thing, in comparison with the knowledge of God Himself. This alone brings to God in spirit (as it did really by the cross of Christ). Observe, that he who exemplifies this action of divine grace was one that knew not traditional religion as the others did, that had no great privileges to boast of in comparison with the rest. It was the Samaritan in whom the Lord illustrated the power of faith. He had told the ten equally to go and show themselves to the priest; and as they went they were cleansed. One only, seeing he was cleansed, turns back, and with a loud voice glorified God. But the way in which he glorified God was not by merely ascribing the blessing to God. "He fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan."

Apparently this was disobedience; and the others could well reproach their Samaritan fellow that he was unfaithful to Jesus. But faith is always right, whatever appearances may say: I speak not now of a fancy, of course, not of any eccentric humour or delusion too often covered over with the name of faith. Real faith which God gives is never so far wrong: and he who, instead of going on to the priest, recognizes in Jesus the power and goodness of God upon earth, (the instincts of that very faith that was of God working in his heart and carrying him back to the source of the blessing,) he, I say, was the only one of the ten who was in the spirit, not only of the blessing but of Him who gave the blessing. And so our Lord Jesus vindicates him. "Were there not ten cleansed?" said the Saviour; "but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger."

Faith invariably discovers the way to give glory to God. It matters not whether it be in Abraham or in a Samaritan leper, its path is entirely outside the ken of nature, yet faith does not fail to discern it; the Lord assuredly puts His seal upon it, and grace supplies all needed strength to follow.

But this was in its principle the judgment of the Jewish system. It was the power of faith leaving Judaism to itself, mounting in Jesus to the source of both law and grace, but not putting the legal system down. This was for other hands. Faith does not destroy; it has no such commission: angels will have that province another day. But faith finds its own deliverance now, leaving those who are under the law and love not grace, to the law which condemns. For itself it discovers the blessedness of freedom from the law, yet is not lawless to God, but, on the contrary, legitimately bound ( ἔννομος ) to Christ, really and duly subject to Him, and so much the more because not under law. In the present case, the cleansed Samaritan in going to Jesus was very simply under grace, in the spirit that animated his heart and formed his path, as Luke the evangelist here records.

How admirably this tale is adapted to the whole tone and character of the Gospel, I need not delay to prove. It must be plain enough, I think, even to a superficial reader, that as Luke alone gives the account, so to Luke it is most especially adapted for the purpose that the Holy Ghost had in hand in this Gospel, and also in this particular context.

We have further, in our Lord's answer to the Pharisees, who demanded when the kingdom of God should come, a striking revelation, and most suitable to Luke's purpose. "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation." It is not a question of signs, wonders, or outward show. It is not that God did not accompany His message with signs. But the kingdom of God, revealed in the person of Christ, went deeper appeals to faith (not sight), and demands the Holy Ghost's action in the soul to give the sinner to see and enter it. Here it is not a question exactly of entering or seeing, as inJohn 3:1-36; John 3:1-36, but rather the moral character of the entrance of God's kingdom among men. It does not address itself to the senses or the mere mind of man; it carries its own evidence with it to the conscience and the heart. As being the kingdom of God, it is impossible that His kingdom should come, without adequate testimony in love to man, who is sought for it. At the same time man, having a bad conscience and a depraved heart, slights God's word as well as kingdom, and looks for that which would please himself by gratifying his feelings, mind, or even lower nature. Our Lord, however, first of all lays down this great principle: it is no question of a "lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." The kingdom was actually there; for He, God's King was there. Then, after settling this moral truth which was fundamental for the soul, He turns to His disciples, and tells them that the days would come when they should desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and should not see it; for the kingdom will be displayed by and by. "When they shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after them, nor follow them. For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under. heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day. But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation." This is the necessary moral order of God. Jesus must first suffer; so "the sufferings of Christ," as Peter said afterwards, "and the glories that should follow." Such is the invariable method of God in dealing with a sinful world, where He brings in, not a test of man, but the effectual work of His own grace. But this presentation to faith now, as we have seen does not hinder the Lord from speaking of another day, when the kingdom of God would be manifest. Before that day of His appearing there might be a premature "Lo here! or, lo there!" The godly must not follow men's cries, but count on the Lord. He compares it to the days of Noe (that is, to the day of God's past judgment of man and his ways); then to the days of Lot.

First of all, then, we have, for the disciples, God's ways in grace, in the Son of man that first suffers, and finally will appear in power and glory. As for the world, careless indifference and enjoyment of present things will characterise the future as the past; but they will be surprised by the Lord in the midst of heedless folly. To this the Lord appends a peculiar, but not less solemn though brief word: "Remember Lot's wife! "Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it." Apparently the wife of Lot was rescued by angelic power; she was certainly brought out of the doomed city; but it was only the more strikingly to be the monument of God's all-searching judgment. There she stands alone. The others perished; but she abode a pillar of salt, when Moses wrote the (morally speaking) imperishable memorial of God's hatred of a false heart, which, spite of outward deliverance, gave its affections still to a scene devoted to destruction. And so our Lord adds here what touched, not merely the Jewish system, but the condition and doom of the world at large. He lets us know that in that night two should be in one bed; one taken, and the other left. So two women at the mill; for here we have not to do with human judgments. God will then judge the quick; and so, no matter what the association, the employment, or the sex, whether within doors or without, there can be no shelter or exemption. Two might be ever so closely knit together, but God would discriminate according to the nicety of His own discernment of their state: one should be taken, and the other left. "And they answered, and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body. is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." Wherever there is that which is dead, and consequently offensive morally unto God, there unquestionably will His judgments fall.

But along with this we have also prayer (Luke 18:1-43), not merely as suitable to a soul's need, and in connection with the word of God received from Jesus, which we have seen in Luke 11:1-54. Here it is prayer out of the midst of circumstances of desolation and deep trial prayer with evil near at hand, as well as divine judgment. Consequently its ultimate bearing is in connection with the tribulation of the last days. But, at the same time, Luke never confines his view to outward facts. Hence, it is said, "He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray." It is the more striking, because the circumstances are evidently limited; while that which He draws from them is universal. The Lord is exhorting to prayer, in view of the final trial; nevertheless, He prefaces it with a plain moral precept on the value. of prayer at all times "that men ought always to pray, and not to faint." Certainly God will not be heedless to the continual cry of His own seemingly desolate elect in their fiery trial, where all the might of man is against them; but still the duty always remains true.

Now, it is Luke alone who thus treats the matter; the great moral value attached to prayer, at the same time connected, it may be, with general circumstances of sorrow, but bearing on the circumstances of the last day. The parable is intended to give or increase confidence in the heed God pays to the prayer of distress. Spite of indifference, an unjust judge yields to the importunity of a poor widow. If a bad man so acted, not because of his hatred of the wrong done to her that was oppressed, but to get rid of being always troubled by her cries for justice if it be so even with the unjust, would not God take up the cause of His own elect, that cried unto Him day and night? It could not but be. He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth? (Verses Luke 18:1-8.)

Then follows another parable of a very different character. It is not the value of persistent prayer, and the certainty of God appearing even for the weakest, no matter how apparently deserted (indeed, so much the more, because of it in His own). We have, further, the moral condition of man illustrated in two ways a broken spirit with little light but a real sense of sin, and another soul satisfied with itself in the presence of God. "And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous) and despised others: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican." Not that the Pharisee represents a man who denies God, or who is not a religious man. He is religious, but such religion is the most damning thing about him. The evil is not merely his sins, but his religion: nothing more blinding to himself and other men, nothing more dishonouring to God. On the other hand, the poor publican has neither clear light nor peace, but at least he realises the commencement of all true light he has learned enough of God to condemn himself. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." He alone of the two judged things according to his little light. He judged himself truly, and, therefore, was in a moral condition to see other things aright, as God should bring them before him. There was as yet no such privilege known as a purged worshipper having no more conscience of sins. Therefore, the convicted publican is found outside, beating his breast, and standing at a distance, not so much as looking up. It was suitable that it should be so; for Christ's work was not yet wrought, still less applied to his soul. It would have been not faith, but presumption, I do not doubt, at such a time, and under such circumstances, for him to have come nigh. All was in its season. But if God invites a believer now to draw near into the holiest of all, is it not equal presumption for that soul to quarrel with the grace of God displayed in Christ's work of redemption, and to raise questions about its effects for itself? God may, and does, bear with the wound to His own grace; and He has His way of correcting such wrong; but there is no ground in the parable to warrant what is too often founded upon it. We owe it to Christ to resent every misinterpretation which goes to undo what He has done on the cross. The publican before us was not meant to give us a full view of the Christian state, or of the blessings of the gospel, but of a man taught of God to feel his own nothingness as a sinner before Him; and God's estimate of him, in comparison with the man who was satisfied with his state. It is humility founded upon the sense of unworthiness, which is always right as far as it goes. (VersesLuke 18:9-14; Luke 18:9-14.)

Next is set forth humility, founded on our littleness (ver. Luke 18:15-17). Many a man is consciously unworthy, because he feels himself a sinner who has no just sense of his littleness in the presence of God. Our Lord here gives this further lesson to the disciples, and uses a child as the text. We shall find how much it was needed if we look into the Gospel of Luke.

Then we have the ruler, to whom our Lord shows that all was wrong where a soul is not brought to know that there is none good but God. Had he really known how good God is he would have soon seen God in Jesus. He saw nothing of the sort. He knew neither God nor good. He looked upon the Lord merely as good after a human fashion. If He was but a man there was no goodness in Him; it is only in God: God alone is good. If Jesus were not God, He was not good. The young ruler had no right, no just title to say, "Good Master", unless that master were God. This he saw not; and therefore, the Lord proves him, and searches the ground of his heart, and demonstrates that after all he valued the world more than God and eternal life. This he had never suspected in himself before. He loved his natural position; he loved to be a ruler, though a young one; he loved his possessions; he loved what he had of present advantages in the world. He really clave to all these things without knowing it himself. The Lord, therefore calls upon him to give them up, and follow Him. He thought there was no demand of goodness but what he was able to meet; but the trial was too much for him. Man was not good God only. Jesus, who was God, had given up beyond all comparison more, yea, infinitely.

What had He not given up, and for whom? He was God, and proved it not least in a self-abnegation truly divine. (Verses Luke 18:18-25.)

Then we have the hearers and disciples disclosing their thoughts. They began to claim something of credit for what they had given up. The Lord admits that there is no abandonment of faith but what will meet with a most adequate remembrance from the Lord another day.

But, at the same time (verses Luke 18:31-34), He takes unto Him the twelve and says, "Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished." This is what He was looking for, whatever they were. "For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on; and they shall scourge Him, and put him to death; and the third day he shall rise again; and they understood none of these things. And this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken." It is an important lesson, and not the first time we find it in Luke, and, indeed, in other Gospels also. Nor can it be too often repeated, that lack of intelligence in Scripture does not depend upon the obscurity of the language, but because the will does not like the truth that is taught. This is the reason why difficulties are felt and abound. When a man is made willing to receive the truth, his eye is single and his whole body full of light. The will is the real hindrance. The mind will be clear, if the conscience and the heart be set right. Where, on the contrary, God breaks down the believer, and sets him free in the liberty wherewith the Son makes free, the conscience is purged, and the heart turned towards Himself. All then becomes right: he is brought into the light of God; he sees light in God's light. Was this the condition of the disciples as yet? Were they not still cleaving to their own cherished expectations of Messiah, and an earthly kingdom? They could not understand Him, no matter how plain the words employed. The hardness of His saying lay not in any lack of perspicuity. Never man spake as this man, His enemies themselves being judges; neither was it from any defect in their natural understanding that the disciples were thus slow. The state of the heart, as ever, was in question; the will was at fault, even though they were regenerate. It was their reluctance to receive what Jesus taught that made the difficulty; and it is the same thing still with believers, as with others.

In verse 35 we enter on the closing section of all the historical Gospels, as is well known, that is to say, the entrance into Jerusalem from Jericho. Only there is a difficulty here to some that Luke appears to contradict what we have in the other accounts of this part of Christ's progress. "It came to pass, that as he came nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the wayside begging." From the other Gospels we know it was when He went out of Jericho, not when He came in. The truth is, that our English version, excellent as it is, goes a little beyond the word of Luke; for our evangelist does not say "When he was come nigh unto Jericho," but "when he was nigh." It is not necessarily a question of coming near, but simply of being in the neighbourhood. The utmost which can or ought to be allowed is, that if the context so required, it might bear the translation (a paraphrase rather) of coming nigh; but this case demands the very reverse. It is evident, whether you go into a place or whether you come out of it, you are equally nigh on one side of the town or on the other. The truth is, that Luke merely states the fact of vicinity here. Further, we know that just as Matthew, for his design, so he displaces facts historically for the purpose of giving a more forcible moral picture of the truth in hand. I have little doubt that in this case the reason for putting the blind man here rather than in leaving, the town was, that for Jericho He reserved the wonderful call of Zaccheus, with the object of bringing that tale of grace, characteristic of His first-advent, into juxtaposition with the question and parable of the kingdom, which illustrated His second advent; for immediately afterwards we have His correction of the disciples, thoughts, that the kingdom of God was immediately going to appear; because He was going up to Jerusalem. They expected that He was going to take the throne of David at once. Accordingly, Luke puts together those two features the grace that illustrates His first coming, and the real nature of the second coming of Christ, as far as regards the appearing of God's kingdom. Now, had the story of the blind man healed at Jericho been left for its historical place, it would have cut the thread of these two circumstances. There is, therefore, in this, as it appears to me, an ample and divine reason why the Spirit of God led the writer to present the cure of the blind man as we find it. But then he does not say what the English version makes him say, "As he was come nigh," but simply, "When he was nigh to Jericho," leaving it open to other Scriptures to define the time with more precision. He only states that it was while the Lord was in the neighbourhood. The other Gospels positively tell us it was as He went out. Clearly, therefore, we must interpret the general language of Luke by the exacter marks of the time and place of those who declare it was as He was going out. Nothing can be simpler. The healing of the blind man was a kind of final testimony that Messiah was there. He was coming in the way, not of the power that once overthrew Jericho, but of grace that showed and could meet the real condition of Israel. They were blind. Had they possessed the faith only to cry to Messiah about their blindness, He was therewith power and willingness to heal them. There was none but a blind man or two to own real need, but our Lord at least healed all who cried. (Verses Luke 18:35-43.)

Then, as He entered Jericho, Zaccheus, the chief of the tax-gatherers, was mightily stirred with the desire to see this wondrous man, the Son of man. Hence he lets nothing stand in the way. Neither personal deficiency, nor the crowd that was there, is allowed to hinder his intense purpose of heart to see the Lord Jesus. He therefore climbs up a sycamore tree by the way; and Jesus knowing well the desire of Zaccheus, and the faith that was at work there however feebly, at once, to his joy and astonishment, invites Himself to his house. "Zaccheus, make haste, and come down; for to-day I must abide at thy house. And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully." All fell to murmuring. It was the same tale at the end as at the beginning. "And Zaccheus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold." He had been really a conscientious man. He was a man thus characterised; for it is no promise of what he is going to do, but he mentions that which was no doubt a fact about himself at that very moment. He was what men call a just and good man, yet a chief tax-gatherer and a wealthy one, though they be hard things to put together. Here was a tax-gatherer who, if through in cautiousness or any defect guilty of wrong to another, needed no pressure to restore fourfold. Such was his habit. Our Lord, however, cuts it all short. As a matter of human righteousness it was well; it was the proof that Zaccheus exercised himself as a man to have a conscience void offence in his own way. Nor is this out of keeping with the tenor of Luke's Gospel, as, indeed, it is only here that we have the story at all. Our Lord, however, shows that it was not the time to think or speak of such matters. "This day is salvation come to this house, inasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." How infinite the blessing! Was it a fitting time for speaking of himself? It was not a question of man's walking righteously, or of talking about it. In truth, man was lost; but the Son of man was there to bear his burden. This great and glorious fact superseded all others. Whatever there had been working in him at any time all was now swallowed up in the presence of the Son of man seeking and saving the lost. What can give us amore vivid, true, and blessed representation of the Lord Jesus Christ in His first coming with the grace of God that brings salvation? (Luke 19:1-10.)

Immediately after (and, if I mistake not, expressly put in close conjunction with this) is the parable of the nobleman who goes into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. They were all wrong therefore, in looking for the kingdom of God immediately to appear. Not so. Christ was going away to heaven to receive the kingdom from God there not about to take it from man now and in this world. It is evidently, therefore, a picture of the Lord's return at the second advent, after having received a kingdom. It was not a question of human willingness or power, but of receiving from God. But then, further, He shows that meanwhile His servants are called to occupy themselves till he come. He called His ten servants, and delivered to them ten pounds; and said unto them, "Occupy till I come." Then we find another picture His citizens hating Him; for nothing can be more elaborate than this parable. The Lord's relation to the kingdom at the second advent is contrasted with the grace that flows out in the former part of the chapter. This is the main subject with which the parable opens. Next, we have the place of the servants responsible to use what the Lord gives. Such is another great point shown out here. It is not, as in the Gospel of Matthew, the Lord giving different gifts to different servants, which is equally true; but here it is the moral test of the servants carried out by each having the same sum. This proves yet more than in the other case how far they laboured. They started with similar advantages. What was the result? Meanwhile hatred became apparent in the citizens, who represent the unbelieving Jews settled down in the earth. "When he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded those servants to be called unto Him, to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy mina hath gained ten minas;" and so with the other; and then we hear of the one who says, "Lord, behold, here is thy mina, which I have kept laid up in a napkin: for I feared thee." There was no confidence in His grace. The consequence is, that, treating the Lord as a froward man, he finds Him froward. Unbelief finds its own response as truly as faith does. As "it is unto thee according to thy faith," so alas! the converse proves true. It is to man according to his unbelief.

Further, we have a remarkable difference in the rewards here. It is not, "Enter into the joy of thy Lord;" but one receives ten cities, another five, and so on. He that was fearful and unbelieving, on the contrary, has his mina taken from him. Again, then enemies are brought forward. The unfaithful servant is not called an enemy, though, no doubt, he was no friend of the Son, and dealt with righteously. But the open adversaries are called into the scene; and as the Lord here pronounces those men His enemies which would not :that He should reign over them, He says, "Bring them hither, and slay them before me." Thus the parable is a very complete sketch of the general results of the Lord's second advent for the citizens of the world, as well as of the occupation and reward of the servants who serve Him faithfully meanwhile. (Verses Luke 19:11-27.)

Next, we have the entrance into Jerusalem. We need not dwell on the scene of the riding in on the colt; but that which is peculiar to Luke claims our attention for a moment. "And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen: saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest."(Ver. 37, 38.) Thus the Spirit of God works to give them a step, and a great step, in divine intelligence beyond the song of the angels at the beginning. What they justly sang at the birth of Jesus was, "Peace on earth: good will that is, God's good will in men," ushered in by glory to God in the highest. Here we have a signal change or converse. "Glory in the highest" is the result, not the introduction; and instead of "peace on earth," (which will, no doubt, be the fruit by and by, as it is according to God's mind, the anticipation from the beginning,) the disciples meanwhile and most appropriately, sing, "Peace in heaven." It was not a question of peace on earth now. The reason was manifest: the earth was unready, was about to judge unjustly, and to be judged. Jesus was on the very point of being cast out and cut off. He was really in heart thoroughly rejected already; but He was shortly to enter on other sufferings, even to the death of the cross. The effect, then, of that which was imminent was not peace for the earth yet, but peace in heaven most assuredly; and therefore we can comprehend how the Lord guided by His Spirit the song of the disciples at the close just as much as at the beginning; that of the angels expressed the general idea of God's purposes the moral effects to spring from the death of the incarnate Son.

After this we hear the murmuring Pharisees rebuked, who would have had the disciples rebuked for their song: if they had not sung it, the stones must have cried out; and the Lord vindicates the blameless (Ver. Luke 19:39-40.)

Then follows that most touching scene, peculiar to and characteristic of Luke Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. It was not at the grave of the one He loved, though about to call from the grave. The weeping in John is in the presence of death, which had touched Lazarus. It is therefore infinitely more personal, though it be also the wondrous sight of One who, coming, with the consciousness of divine power to banish death and bring life into the scene, yet in grace nevertheless did not one whit the less, but the more, feel the power of death as no mere man ever felt, yet as none but a real man could feel. There never was any one that had such a sense of death before as Jesus, just because He was life, the energy of which, combined with perfect; love, made the power of death to be so sensible. Death does not feel death, but life did. Therefore He that was (and not merely had) life, as no one else, weeps in the presence of death, groaning, in spirit at the grave. His having power to banish death weakened His sense of it in no respect. If poor dying man felt it somewhat, the Lord made flesh, the God-man, entered into it in spirit the more because He was God, though man. But here we have another scene, His weeping over that very city that was about to cast Him out and crucify Him. Oh it is a truth for us to treasure in our hearts His weeping in divine grace over guilty Jerusalem, forsaking its own mercies, rejecting its own Saviour the Lord God. Its desolation He predicts, and destruction, because the time of its visitation was unknown. (Verses Luke 19:41-44.) His visit to the temple and its cleansing are mentioned summarily; as also His teaching there daily the chiefs of priest and people, With their desire to destroy Him but hardly knowing how, for all the people hung on Him to hear. In Luke 20:1-47 we have the various classes of religionists and worldly men trooping one after another, hoping somehow to ensnare or accuse the Lord of glory. Each of them falls into the trap which they had made for Him. Accordingly they do but discover and condemn themselves. We have the priests with their question of authority (ver. Luke 20:1-8), then the people hearing the history of God's dealings with them, and their moral condition fully brought out. (Verses Luke 20:9-19.) We have further the crafty spies, hired by the chief priests and scribes, that feigned themselves just, and thought to take hold of His words, and embroil Him with the earthly powers. (Verses Luke 20:20-26.)

We have, after these, the Sadducees denying the resurrection. (Verses Luke 20:27-38.) But here we may pause for a moment; for there are special and profoundly instructive touches peculiar to Luke. More particularly remark this that he alone, of all the evangelists, here characterizes men, in the activities of this life, as "the children of this world," or age. They are persons who live merely for the present. "The children of this world [age] marry, and are given in marriage; but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world [age], and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more; for they are equal unto the angels." In the resurrection state there will be no such relations. The difficulty existed for, or rather was made by, unbelief only. Indeed, what else can incredulity ever pretend to? It imagines difficulties, and nowhere so much as in the most certain truth of God. The resurrection is the great truth to which all things turn which the Lord has shown in its final form, too, in His own person now raised from the dead, then just about to follow. This truth was combated and refused by the most active sect among the Jews at that time, the most intellectual and the best informed naturally. These were the persons who most of all set themselves against it.

But our Lord brings in another remarkable point here. Not only is God not the God of the dead, but of the living; but "all live unto him." (Ver. Luke 20:38; Luke 20:38.) Two great truths are here present living unto God after death, and future resurrection, when Jesus comes and brings in the new age. This was especially of value for Gentiles, because it was one of the great problems for the heathen mind, whether the soul existed after death, not to speak of the resurrection of the body. Naturally the Jews, save the unbelieving portion of them, looked for resurrection; but for the Gentiles the Spirit of God gives us our Lord's answer to the Sadducees, both proving the resurrection which is common to all the Gospels, and bringing in the living, of dead men in the separate state. It peculiarly fell within the domain of Luke.

This truth is not confined to the present portion of our Gospel. We have similar teaching elsewhere. Does not the account of the rich man and Lazarus intimate the same thing? Yea, more; not only the existence of the soul separate from the body, after death, of course) but also blessedness and misery at once. They are not absolutely dependent on the resurrection. Besides, there is the final publicly adjudicated portion of misery for body and soul before the great white throne. But, inLuke 16:1-31; Luke 16:1-31, blessedness and misery at once are felt by the soul in the dissolution of the link with the body. The figures, no doubt, are taken, as they must be, from the body. Thus we find the desire for cooling of the tongue, which men of speculative mind use to prove that it was the time of being clothed with a real body. Nothing of the sort. The Spirit of God speaks to be understood, and (if He is to be understood by men) He must deign to use language adapted to our comprehension. He cannot give us the understanding of a state which we have never experienced, unless it be by figures taken from the present state. A similar truth appears also later on in the case of the converted thief. The point there is just the same immediate blessedness, and not merely when the body is raised from the dead by and by. That is what he looked for when he sought to be remembered, when Jesus comes in His kingdom. But the Lord adds more immediate blessedness now: "This day shalt thou be with me in paradise." Depend upon it, we cannot be too stringent in maintaining, the importance both of the resurrection, and of the immediate blessedness or misery of the soul separate from the body before the resurrection. To give up the reality of the soul's existence in either misery or blessedness at once is only a stepping-stone to materialism; and materialism is but a prelude to giving up both the truth and the grace of God, and all the awful reality of man's sin and Satan's power. Materialism always is essentially infidel, though far from being, the only form of infidelity.

Towards the end of the chapter (ver. Luke 20:39-44; Luke 20:39-44) our Lord puts the great question of His own person and the position He was just going to take not on the throne of David but on the throne of God. Was not He Himself, David's Son owned as his Lord by David? On the person and position of Christ depends the whole of Christianity. Judaism, lowering the person, sees not or denies the position. Christianity is based not on the work only but on the glory of the person and place of Him who is glorified in God. He takes that place as man. He who humbled Himself as man in suffering is exalted as man to the glory of God on high.

Then follows the judgment but very briefly on the scribes; and in contrast With their selfish hypocrisy, ("which devour widows' houses and for a show make long prayers") the Lord's estimate of real devotedness is the widow's mites. (Luke 21:1-4.) Mark notices it as the service of faith and so brings it into his Gospel of service. Luke shows it as a question of the heart's state and trust in God. It fell therefore, within the domain of these two.

We have after this the hearts of the disciples proved to be still earthly and Jewish; but the Lord brings before them not the glory and beauty yet in store for Jerusalem but it is judgment specially on the temple. (Verses Luke 21:5-36.) At the same time we have particulars which demonstrate the weighty difference between this description of the judgment of the Jews and Jerusalem, and mark it off from the accounts of either Matthew or Mark. Observe more especially this, that here the Lord Jesus brings before us a very direct and immediate picture of the destruction of Jerusalem that was then imminent. Matthew passes by the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and fixes attention upon that which will take place in the end of the age. Luke gives us this last also closes, at any rate, with the future crisis; but the main point is the central portion of Luke is to point out the destruction then actually at hand as a distinct state of things and time from the circumstances of the Son of man's day. This is made perfectly plain to any one who considers it patiently. He says, "When ye shall sec Jerusalem, not "the abomination of desolation" (not a word about it here for it belongs to the last days exclusively; but "when ye shall see Jerusalem) compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains." Not a word about the great tribulation such as never was since time was; it is simply "days of vengeance." "These be the days of vengeance that all things which are written may be fulfilled." There is retributive severity, but not a sign appears of its being anything unparalleled. "There shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people." So there was. "And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations." This is a matter of fact description of what was really fulfilled to the letter in the capture of Jerusalem by the Romans under Titus. Thus there is no exaggerated description. The pretence of commentators, who rush to hyperbole as a cover for their misapplication, is cut off. Not that I allow it any more in Matthew. The only reason why men have so spoken of that evangelist is because they turn aside his prophecy of the end of the age to that which has been already accomplished. When the last days come, be assured they will learn too late that there is no hyperbole with God or His word.

And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Not only is there the sack of the city, the slaughter and captivity of the people, but continual occupation by their enemies till the termination of the period God allows the nations to have the supremacy over Israel. These times are going on now. Jerusalem has been trodden down of the Gentiles for many centuries as every one knows, throughout mediaeval and modern history. It seems particularly thus expressed in order not to continue the phrase to the Romans or previous imperial powers from Babylon downwards. Thus at the present time the Turks are the actual holders of it. The fact is notorious, that Jerusalem has been in the hands of many masters who have dealt hardly with the Jews. So He closes this matter.

Next, He introduces the last days. And there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars. There was not a word of all this when He spoke of the siege and capture of the city under Titus. After the Gentile domination is over (which clearly it is not yet), there shall be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and distress of nations; men's hearts failing them forfear; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken and then shall they see not when the Romans of old took the city but, in the future crisis, when these astonishing tokens, heavenly and earthly, are given by God then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh."

He gives then a parable but not of the fig tree only: this would not be suitable to the largeness of Luke's scope. "Behold the fig-tree and all the trees." The difference between Luke and the others is this not that you have not the Jewish portion in his Gospel but that, moreover all the Gentiles are brought in. How perfect it all is! If it be but a parabolic description, the evangelist for the Gentiles not only gives the fig tree which is in Matthew, but the Gentile trees which are heard of nowhere else. That one tree notoriously applies to the Jews as a nation; the other figure ("all the trees") adds the rest, so as to be universal.

Then the Lord adds some moral considerations for the heart: "Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come upon all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth." Need it be remarked here that this again falls in with our evangelist beyond all others? So too the brief picture of His daily occupation in the temple and of His nights apart at Olivet which in no way precluded the people from coming to hear early in the morning. What unwearied travail of love!

In Luke 22:1-71 we see our Lord with the disciples not now as a prophet, but about to become a sacrifice meanwhile giving them the sweetest pledge of His love. On the other hand, there is the hatred of man, the weakness of the disciples, the falsehood of Peter, the treachery of Judas, the subtlety and terrors of the enemy who had the power of death. The day of unleavened bread comes on, and the passover must be killed; and Peter and John go to prepare it. According to the Lord's word, the place was given. "And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him. And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer: for I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God." (Luke 22:14-16.) It was the last act of communion of Christ with them. He eats with them: He will not drink. Another cup was before Him. As for this cup, they were to take it, and divide it among themselves. It was not the Lord's Supper, but the paschal cup. He was about to drink of a far different cup, which His Father would give Him the anti-type of the passover, and the basis of the Lord's Supper. But as to the cup before them, He says, "I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come." It was about to come morally; for Luke holds to that great principle the kingdom of God was about to be established in what you may call the Christian system. The phrase in Luke does not import some future dispensation or state of things about to be above or below, in visible power, but an imminent coming of God's kingdom, really and truly here. The other Gospels connect it with the future; Luke speaks of what was to be made good shortly "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."

Meanwhile, He gives them also a new thing. (Luke 22:19-20.) He took bread with thanksgiving, brake it, and gave to them, saving, "This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant* of my blood, which is shed for you." It was not the point with Luke to say "for many," while this was most appropriate in the Gospel of Matthew, because it intimates the extending of the efficacy of Christ's blood beyond the Jew. The old covenant which condemned was limited. The new covenant (or, rather, the blood of the rejected Christ, the Son of man, on which it was based) refused such narrow barriers. In Luke the same thing, occurs here, as we said applied to His account of the sermon on the mount. It is more personal, and hence deals more closely with the heart and conscience. How many a man acknowledges justification by faith in a general sense, who, the moment you make it personal, would shrink from taking the place of a justified man, as if this would be too much for God to give him! But, in truth it is impossible to go on with God aright, until the personal question is settled by divine grace. So the Lord here settles it for them personally. "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you."

* "Testament" is wrong here, and, indeed, everywhere else in the New Testament, save in the parenthesis ofHebrews 9:16-17; Hebrews 9:16-17.

"And truly the Son of man goeth,......... but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed!" An awful moral contrast rises before the spirit of the Saviour. Thus He felt it: as it is said elsewhere, "He was troubled." There is much vagueness in minds as to this merging all in the atonement, to the great detriment of their distinctness even in holding the atonement itself. To me it is a grievous thing, this denial practically of a large part of the sufferings of Christ. Pushed out, it rests on a want of faith in the real humanity of the Lord. I take for granted now that there is a firm hold of His bearing God's wrath on the cross. But even where that is maintained in a general way, at least, it is an awful thing to deny any part of His moral glory; and what is it but denying, this, to shut out those real sufferings which prove the extent and character of His humiliation, exalt and endear Himself in our eyes, and issue in the richest streams of comfort for His saints, who can afford to lose none of His sympathy?

Now, the Lord Jesus did feel the traitor's heartless ways (and we may learn it yet more from Psalms 109:1-31.) Surely also we ought to feel it, instead of merely treating it as a thing, that must be, and which Scripture prepares us for, or which God's goodness turns to gracious ends. All true enough; but are these the platitudes that content us before His troubled spirit? Or is not the sense of His sorrow to fill the heart in presence of this ineffable love, which endured all things for the elect's sake? Yea, it was from all: our Lord has to meet shame in those He loved best. "They began to enquire among themselves which of them it was that should do this thing." (Ver. Luke 22:23; Luke 22:23.) There was honesty in these hearts; but what ignorance! what unbrokenness of self! "There was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted greatest." Other evangelists, as well as Luke, mention that, when He was in the midst of His miracles and teaching, they were full of their unseemly rivalry; Luke mentions it where it was beyond comparison most painful and humiliating in presence of the communion of His body and His blood, and when they had just heard of the presence of the traitor in their midst, who was offering to sell their Master for thirty pieces of silver! "And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth." What grace! what a pattern! But forget not the warning. The patronizing, of the lordly benefactor has no place in Christ's mind for His followers. To serve was the Lord's place: may we prize it! (Verses Luke 22:24-27.)

Another touching, and beautiful trait in our Lord's dealing is here worthy of remark. He tells the disciples that it was they who had continued with Him in His temptations. In Matthew and Mark, and even in John, their forsaking of Christ is very conspicuous a little later. Luke alone tells how graciously He noticed their perseverance with Himself in His temptations. Both, of course, were perfectly true. In Luke it was the reckoning of grace. It was really the Lord who had deigned to continue with them, and had sustained their faltering steps; but He could say, "Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." It is always thus in grace. Matthew and Mark tell us the sad truth that, when He needed the disciples most, they all forsook Him and fled. His rejection was complete; and Old Testament Scripture was amply fulfilled. But, in view of the Gentile calling, New Testament grace has here a happier task.

Again, it is a scene peculiar to Luke, that, in the presence of the Saviour's death, Satan sifts one of the chief followers that belonged to the Saviour. But the Lord turns the sifting, and even the downfall of the saint to ultimate and great blessing not for that soul only but for others. How mighty, and wise, and good the ways of grace! not only its reckoning, but its experiences and its end! It was Simon that furnished the material. "Simon, Simon," says the Lord, "Satan hath desired [demanded] to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." Simon, sadly ignorant of himself, is full of bold promises to go to prison or to death; but, says the Lord, "Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me." All the evangelists record the fall; Luke alone records Christ's gracious prayer for, and purpose in, his restoration.

Then comes in another communication of our Saviour not more interesting than full of instruction. It is the contrast of the condition of the disciples during His ministry, and that which must be now that He was going to die. It was indeed concurrent with a change of vast import for Himself not awaiting His death, but in many respects beginning before it. The sense of His rejection and His approaching death not only pressed on the Saviour's spirit, but more or less also affects the disciples, who were under the pressure especially of what was done by men. "When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye anything? And they said, Nothing. Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors [or], [rather, lawlessness ἀνόμων ]: for the things concerning me have an end. And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough." It is not surprising that the disciples at that time failed to seize His meaning. Though all the rest of His teaching might have taught them better, they took His words in a material sense, and conceived that He urged them to take a literal sword. It is evident He took up the figure of a sword and purse to show, that instead of counting any more on miraculous resources, they must in future use, according to the measure of their personal faith, whatever God furnished them with; that is, they must employ natural things for the Lord, instead of being, as hitherto, shielded by supernatural power in the midst of their foes. We find them afterwards using miracles; but it was for others. In their earlier mission it was never needed. No blow fell upon them. No prison closed its doors upon one of the twelve, or of the seventy. They traversed the length and breadth of the land, everywhere bearing their plain, solemn testimony, ever guarded by God's power: just like their Master Himself. We see how truly miraculous this power was apart from any exertion of it on their own behalf. But now all was to change; and the disciple must be as his Master. Jesus was going to suffer. They must make up their minds to the same thing. Of course, they are not excluded from but exhorted to, the looking up to God, and using faithfully whatever means the Lord gave them.

This, I apprehend, is the clear meaning of His altered language here. The Messiah was about to be openly cut off. The arm that had upheld them, and the shield that had been over them, are removed. So it was with Him. He was now about to face death; first in spirit, then in fact. Such was ever His way. Everything was in that order. He was surprised by nothing. He was not like a mere man who waited till he could not help following, and then went in steel through the trouble. This may be the way of men, to avoid what they can, and think as little as possible of what is painful and disagreeable. It may even be according to men's ideas of a hero, but it is not the truth of Christ. On the contrary, though the true God, He was a true man, and a holy sufferer, having a heart that felt every thing: this is the truth of Christ as man. Therefore He takes all from God, and feels all, as it really was for His glory.

Accordingly our Saviour, at the mount of Olives, (ver. Luke 22:39-46; Luke 22:39-46) shows how true what I have just asserted is; for there it is that He is found first of all telling them to pray, lest they should enter into temptation. Temptation may come and test the heart; but our entering into it is quite another thing. "Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done." Still farther to show its character, and His unimpeachable relation to God, as well as how really He was a suffering man, "there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." So difficult is the path of faith for men in one direction or another, that (in earlier days when, in the midst of adversaries and full of superstition, men yet clung to the stainless honour of the Son of God)the timid orthodox ventured on the bold step of expunging verses Luke 22:44-45; for what, after all, is so adventurous as this Uzzah-like anxiety for the ark of God? They thought it impossible that the Lord Jesus could suffer thus. Little did they estimate the depth unfathomable of the cross, when God hid His face from Him. Had they discerned this better, and been simple in the faith of His real manhood, and held to the written word about His sufferings on and before the cross, they had not been so easily stumbled. But they were not simple, understood in the Scriptures, and accordingly dared, some to stigmatize these verses, others to strike them out. In modern days they manage things both more prudently and more effectually. They may not obelize or obliterate; but they do not believe them. Men pass them over as if there was nothing for the soul in them, as if the Saviour Son of God condescended to a show, a pantomime, instead of enduring the severest conflict and anguish that ever had been the portion of a human heart on this earth. Never was any thing but reality in Jesus; but if in the days of His flesh there was one passage more affecting than another, any thing which more than another presents to us His sorrows clearly, graphically and with solemn instruction for us, anything for God Himself above all glorifying (the cross alone excepted) it was this very scene where Jesus avoids and wards off no suffering, but bends to every stroke, (and what was He spared?) seeing God's hand in all.

Now their hour was come, and the power of darkness. Before this they could not lay hands upon Him; but now, the active work done, and Himself definitively refused, Jesus accepts all humiliation, shame, and suffering. But he does not see man merely. He does not look at the devil, or Jews, or Gentiles. He feels all man did and said, and owns His Father. He knew full well that His Father could have hindered every pang had He been so pleased could have turned Israel's heart could have broken the nations. But now the Jew is left to abhor Him, the Gentile to despise and crucify Him. Against the holy servant Jesus whom God had anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathering together; but was it not to do whatsoever God's hand and God's counsel determined before to be done? He saw God His Father above and behind all the secondary instruments, and bowed and blessed, even while He prayed with blood-sweat. He would erect no barricade of miracles to shelter Himself. To weigh before God such circumstances as then surrounded Jesus, to anticipate in His presence what was coming, did not lessen, but rather increased the depth of all; and so we find Him praying earnestly to His Father that, if it were possible, the cup should pass away from Him. But it was not possible; and so He adds, "Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done." Both were perfect. It would have been hardness, not love, had the cup been treated as a light thing: but this could never be with Jesus. It was part of the very perfection of Jesus that he felt and deprecated the awful cup. For what was in that cup? The wrath of God. How could He wish for the wrath of God? It was right to deprecate it: it was like Jesus, notwithstanding, to say, "Thy will be done." Both the deprecation and the acceptance were thoroughly perfect both equally in their due place and season. Who fails to see it, or would harbour a doubt, that knows who Jesus was, and what the glory of His person? It is not a question, however, of His merely being God; and you destroy the value of the suffering if you do not give full place to His humanity. Not that His Godhead ever made His suffering less; else the result would have been some nondescript estate which was neither Godhead nor manhood, but somewhat made up of both. It was an early error to suppose an impassible Christ. There is no worse invention against the truth, unless it be the lie which denies Him to be God the Son. An unsuffering impassible Christ is of Satan, not the true God and eternal life. It is a false chimera of the enemy. Be assured, that if the suffering be so real and precious to God, it is a dangerous thing to pare down, fritter away, or deny any part of it. For us it is the question of what God tells us in His word of the sufferings of Christ not whether we understand all He says about them. Be assured that we know but in part, and have much to learn, especially of that which does not touch our own immediate necessities; but there is one thing we are always responsible for and that is, to submit to God, to believe Him, even though we enter very little into the depths of all that He has written for us of Jesus.

Only this I would add. It does not become such as say they do not understand this or that, to take the place of being judges. It is intelligible that those who know should judge; not so, as it appears to me, that people should take the place of judging who confessedly do not know. It were wise, not to say becoming humility, to wait and learn.

Next we see Judas, who approaches and kisses Christ: the Lord of glory is betrayed by the apostle. The final scene comes on apace; and not more surely, according to the word of Christ, the murderous malice of the priests, than the energy of Peter, so fatal, to himself, who could not face the difficulty into which his self-confidence carried him. He that could not pray with his Master, but slept in the garden, breaks down without his Master before a servant girl. The rest fled. John tells the tale of his own shame, with Peter's. The scene is complete. There is not a witness for Jesus now. He is alone. Man has it apparently all his own way, in mockery, blows, and blasphemy; but yet he is only accomplishing the will, the purpose, and the grace of God. (Ver. Luke 22:63-65.) The chapter closes with Jesus before the council of elders, chief priests, and scribes. "Art thou the Christ?" was too late now: they had proved that they would not believe. From henceforth [not] ["hereafter,'' as in the A.V.] shall the Son of man be sitting on the right hand of the power of God. It is the well-known transition, we see everywhere, on the rejection of the Messiah. "Art thou then the Son of God?" said they all. He owns to the truth; and they need no more to condemn Him.

In Luke 23:1-56 Jesus is found not before Pilate only, but Herod; and the two men who heretofore hated each other are here reconciled, now that it is a question of rejecting Jesus. It is only Luke who gives us this touch. What a league of peace over the rejection of the Saviour! At any rate the scorning of Jesus proceeds; and Pilate, carried away against his conscience by the will of the people, gave sentence that it should be as they required. Jesus is led away to the cross, and Simon is compelled to bear it after Jesus; for now man shows his needless cruelty in every form

The women that were there lament with the crowd after Jesus: there was much of human feeling in this, though not faith or real love. Why not lament for themselves; for in truth there were days of sorrow coming, when they should say, "Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare; and the paps that never gave suck." "Then they shall begin to say to the mountains fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" Jesus was the green tree; and if Jesus was so treated, what should be their fate, as set forth fully by that dry tree, which was Israel? Undoubtedly Israel ought to have been the green tree of promise; but it was only a dry tree waiting, for judgment. But Jesus, the green tree(where there was all the vigour of holy ways and obedience), was far from honour, and now on His way to the cross. Such was man, to whom He had been delivered! What would be God's judgment of man? (VersesLuke 23:27-31; Luke 23:27-31.)

And they crucified Jesus between two malefactors the one on the right hand, and the other on the left and Jesus says, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." They part His raiment, and cast lots for it. The people behold, the rulers deride, and the soldiers mock; but a superscription was written over Him in Greek, and Roman, and Hebrew letters This is the King of the Jews. (VersesLuke 23:32-38; Luke 23:32-38.)

Jesus works the great work of salvation in the heart of one of the malefactors. It was a real work within: it was not merely a work ever so perfectly done outside. Most assuredly there never was a soul saved but the work was done for him done alone by Jesus He alone suffering, the sinner saved. But where the heart knows the work done for the soul, there is a work done in that very soul. So it was here: and it is of great importance that those who maintain the work for, should equally maintain the work in. Even in this case, where the effect was produced rapidly, the Spirit of God has given us the great moral traits of it. First of all appears a hatred of sin in the fear of God; then the repentant heart rebukes the shameless evil of his fellow, who feels that it is, least of all, a time thus to sin boldly in the presence of death, and of God's judgment. "We indeed justly; but this man hath done nothing amiss." Evidently there was more than righteousness here. There was a sense of grace, as well as of sin, and sensitiveness about God's will. There was delight in "this man," Jesus, whose holiness made such an impression, that the poor felon, now a believer, could challenge all the world, and feel no more doubt of the Lord's blameless life than if he had witnessed it all through. How great is the simplicity and assurance of faith! Who was he that could correct the judgment of priests or governor? "This man hath done nothing amiss." It was a crucified robber! He forgot Himself in Christ the Lord thus vindicated. Then he turns to Jesus, and says, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." Yes! and Jesus will remember could not put Him aside. He never cast out either a soul that came to Him, or a prayer that was founded on His glory, and desired association with Him. It could not be. He came down to associate with the poorest and feeblest on earth. He is now gone on high to associate with Himself there those who were once, possibly, the worst on the earth, now with Himself above, cleansed of course (need we say it?) cleansed by water and blood. And so with this soul whom grace had now touched. "Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom." What more convincing proof that the man had not an anxiety about his sins? for if he had, he would, of course, have put it forward. He would have said, "Lord, do not remember my sins." Nothing of the sort was uttered, but "Lord, remember me." What would Christ's kingdom be to him, if his sins were not blotted out? He so counted on His grace, that no doubt or question remained, and he asks to be remembered by Jesus at His advent, ascribing the kingdom to Him who was hanging on the cross. He was right; and Jesus replies with ineffable grace, and according to that style so worthy of God (compare Psalms 132:1-18), which not only answers the prayer of faith, but invariably surpasses it. God must be God in His recognition of faith, as everywhere else. We saw on the mount of transfiguration that there is a blessedness beyond that of the kingdom, where government is not in question. This is not the theme predicted by prophets, but a glory which the person of Jesus alone can account for, and His grace alone introduce to. So here Jesus says to the converted robber, "This day shalt thou be with me in paradise" at once, by virtue of His blood, the companion of Christ in the garden of divine joy and delight. (Verses Luke 23:39-43.)

Then the Spirit of God notices the darkness which reigned, and not merely in the lower air around the earth; for the sun was darkened, the splendid orb of natural light, which rules the day. The veil of the temple, too, which characterized the whole system of the Jewish religion, was rent from top to bottom. This was not the effect of an earthquake, nor of other physical causes. The natural light disappeared, and Judaism vanished, that a new and true light might shine, making him who saw it free of the holiest of all. Luke groups the external facts together, and leaves the Lord's death more alone with its moral adjuncts.

"And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost." Here there is no cry to God in the sense of being forsaken, when His soul was made an offering for sin. This was given appropriately by Matthew and Mark. Nor is it as the consciously divine person, the Son, pronouncing the work finished for which He had come. It is the ever perfect man, Christ Jesus, with unwavering confidence committing His spirit into His Father's keeping. (Compare Psalms 16:1-11; Psalms 31:1-24) It was the atoning One. On the cross, and nowhere else, was expiation effected; there was His blood shed; there His death, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, yet knew what it was to have the face of God hid from Him in judgment of sin our sin. But the words here are no expression of His suffering, as thus abandoned and atoning, but of the peaceful departure of His spirit, as man, into the hands of God the Father. He is drinking the cup in Matthew and Mark; He, the true, but rejected Messiah, the faithful servant, now suffering for sin, who had laboured in grace here below. But here the Saviour is viewed in His absolute dependence and trust in Him, whom He had set before Him, as in life always, so with equal affiance of heart in death. It was the province of John to show Him even then above all circumstances in personal glory. It is beyond all controversy, that here the human side of Christ's death is more vividly portrayed than in any of the Gospels perfect, but human; just as in John it is the divine side, though care is taken to prove particularly there its reality, as well as the witness of its efficacy for sinful man. The consistency of this with all we have seen in Luke, from first to last, is unquestionable: Son of God of the Highest, as of David also; but He is emphatically, and in every detail, the Son of man.

Remark here the absence of a crowd of circumstances of the deepest interest to the Jew, when grace makes him meek, and obedient in heart of solemn warning to him, whatever the unbelief which shuts up his heart and seals his ears, to the truth Here is no dream and message from Pilate's wife; here no awful episode of Judas . In remorse and despair, casting the price of innocent blood into the very sanctuary, and going away to hang himself; here no imprecation of His blood on them and on their children; here no detail of the guilty people's unconscious accomplishment of the living oracles of God in the Psalms and Prophets; nor here any allusion to the earthquake, and the rent rocks, and opened graves, or the subsequent appearing of risen saints to many in the holy city. All this has its due place in the Gospel for the circumcision. Luke tells us what had the largest bearing on the Gentiles, on the heart, its wants, and its affections. We see the people beholding, the rulers also with them sneering, the soldiers mocking with vulgar brutality, but Jesus dealing in ineffable grace with a justly crucified malefactor. No doubt there was the deepest of suffering for Himself. Certainly, too, His suffering, though not confined to the cross, there culminated, as there alone was sin judged; there God's necessary intolerance of it was proved, when only, but most really, imputed to Christ. Thus, the only perfect man, the last Adam, who was there rejected of the Jews, and despised of men, with a loud voice, which denied the exhaustion of nature in His death, commended His spirit, as man, to His Father. It is not here, therefore, One speaking in the sense of God's abandonment (as we saw in Matthew and Mark), though this cup He had, indeed, drank to the dregs. But in this Gospel the last words are of One who, whatever the forsaking of God for sin, was perfectly tranquil, and peacefully committed Himself to His Father. It is the act and language of Him whose confidence was unlimited in the One He was going to. He had come to do His will, and had done it in the face of growing scorn and rejection; and God had not guarded Him from the murderous hate of man, but contrariwise, delivered Him into their hands, greater things being in counsel and accomplishment than if He had been received. The truth is the sum of what all tell us. Those who believe God, instead of being fettered to the traditions of a school, good or bad, must open their mouth wide for Him to fill with His good things old and new. He who on the cross tasted, for expiation, the unutterable woe of which Matthew and Mark speak, is the same Jesus who, Luke tells us, never wavered for a moment, not merely in His obedience, but in unreserved confidence in God; and the expression of this, not of atonement, I read in the precious words, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." (VersesLuke 23:44-46; Luke 23:44-46.)

Accordingly, the centurion is mentioned here as owning Jesus to be "a righteous man," whatever man might have judged or done. The people seem conscious that it was all over with them stricken in heart over a deed they could not but feel to be dreadful, though hardly defined. God does not leave man without witness. But, as usual, with men without the revealed light of God, though conscious when sin is done that there is something utterly wrong it is soon forgotten; so here, though not without the sense that the case was desperate, they go not only as sheep without a shepherd, but stumble in the dark night. All His acquaintances and the women are seen in their sorrow not vain surely not; but still they stood far off: (VersesLuke 23:46-49; Luke 23:46-49.)

Yet was this the moment when, spite of a traitorous disciple, spite of another too confident that denied Him with oaths, spite of all who ought to have been faithful forsaking and fleeing, spite of the distant and saddened lookers on who had once followed Him devotedly, God emboldens a man of high station, who might have been then the least expected by us (and, as we are told elsewhere, Nicodemus). Joseph of Arimathea was a man that had waited for the kingdom of God for some time, a good man and just, and a real believer, though he had shrunk from open confession of the Lord Jesus; but now, when fear might naturally have more than ever operated to keep him back, grace made him bold. This, at least, was quite right, and like the God of all grace. If the death of our Lord does not unlock a man's heart and tongue, I do not know what will. So this timid Joseph waxes valiant in fight. The honourable counsellor renounced the expediency and prudence of the past, horrified, no doubt, at their counsel and deed to which he had not assented. But now he does more: he add to his faith virtue. He goes boldly to Pilate, and begs the body of Jesus, Which, being obtained, is worthily laid in the rock-hewn sepulchre, wherein never had man beenlaid. (Verse Luke 23:53.)

"And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on. And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment.'' (Ver. Luke 23:54-56.) It was affection, but with little intelligence. Their love lingered. over the scene of His death and burial, without for the present in the least realizing, that life which was to be put forth soon so gloriously. Had they not heard His words? Would He, would God, not make them good?

On the morrow of the sabbath, very early indeed in the morning, these Galilean women were there, and some others with them. (Luke 24:1) And they found the stone rolled away, but not the body of Jesus. They were not alone; angels appeared. Two men in shining array stood by these perplexed saints. "And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, [what a rebuke to their unbelief!] Why seek ye the living (One) among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you while he was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they remembered his words." (Ver. Luke 24:5-8; Luke 24:5-8.) This last is ever a great point with Luke the emphatic value always of any part of God's word, but especially of the words of Jesus.

Accordingly, after this was duly reported to the apostles and the rest, one like another incredulous, we have the visit of Peter (accompanied, as John lets us know, by himself), who sees confirmation enough, and departed, wondering, in himself at that which was come to pass. (Verses Luke 24:9-12.)

Luke then ushers in another scene, still more precious, peculiar in its details at least to himself the journey to Emmaus, where Jesus joins Himself to the two downcast disciples, who discoursed, as they went, on the irreparable loss they had sustained. Jesus hears this tale of sorrow from their lips, brings out the state of their hearts, and then opens the Scriptures, instead of merely appealing to the facts in the way of evidence. This employment of the Scriptures by our Lord is very significant. It is the word of God which is the truest, deepest, weightiest testimony, even though the risen Jesus Himself were there, and its living, demonstration in person. But it is the written word which, as the apostle himself shows, is the sole adequate safeguard for the perilous times of the last days. Here, too, the loved companion of Paul proves, in the history of the resurrection, the value of the Scriptures. The word of God here the Old Testament interpreted by Jesus is the most valuable means for ascertaining the mind of God. Every Scripture is inspired of God, and is profitable yea, able to make us "wise unto salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus." Hence our Lord expounds to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. What a sample that day was of the walk of faith! Henceforth it was not a question of a living, Messiah on the earth, but of Him that was dead and risen, now seen by faith in the word of God. On the face of the account, this was the great living lesson that our Lord was teaching, us through the two disciples. (Verses Luke 24:13-29.)

But there was more. How is He to be known? There is but one way that can be trusted in which we can know Jesus. There are those in Christendom that descant upon Jesus as ignorant of His glory as a Jew or a Mahometan. Our own day has seen how men can speak and write eloquently of Jesus as a man here below, all the while serving Satan denying His name, His person, His work, when they flatter themselves they are honouring Him, like the weeping women (Luke 23:27), without a grain of faith in His glory or His grace. Hence was it of all importance that we should learn wherein He is to be known. Thus Jesus sets forth the Only way in which He can be rightly known, or that can be confided in. On this alone God can put His seal. The seal of the Holy Ghost is unknown until there is the submission of faith to the death of Jesus. And so our Lord breaks bread with the disciples. It was not the Lord's Supper; but Jesus made use of that act of breaking the bread significantly, which the Lord's Supper brings before us continually. In it, as we know, bread is broken the sign of His death. Thus Jesus was pleased, Himself with them, that the truth of His death should flash upon the two souls at Emmaus. He was made known unto them in the breaking of bread in that most simple but striking action which symbolises His death. He had blessed, broken, and was giving the bread to them, when their eyes were opened, and they recognised their risen Lord. (VerseLuke 24:30; Luke 24:30.)

There is a third supplemental point, which I only touch on His instant disappearance after He was made known to them in the sign of His death. This is also characteristic of Christians. We walk by faith, not by sight. (VerseLuke 24:31; Luke 24:31.)

Thus the great evangelist, who exhibits what is most real for man's heart now, and what most of all maintains the glory of God in Christ, binds these things together for our instruction. Though Scripture was perfectly expounded by Jesus, and though hearts burned as they heard of these wondrous things, still it must be shown in concentrated form that the knowledge which alone can be commended by God or trusted by man is this Jesus known in that which brings His death before the soul. The death of Jesus is the sole foundation of safety for a sinful man. This is the true way of knowing Jesus for a Christian. Anything short of this, anything other than this, whatever supplants it as fundamental truth, is false. Jesus is dead and risen, and so must be known, if He is to be known aright. "Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more."

And so, that same hour, we see the disciples returning to Jerusalem, and finding the eleven there, who say, "The Lord hath risen, and appeared unto Simon." (Verses Luke 24:32-34.) Here we have nothing about Galilee. In Matthew, Galilee is the quarter especially noticed. A rejected Messiah, fitly and according to prophecy, finds Himself in Galilee, the despised place. It was so during His life and public ministry (and hence it figures in Mark so prominently). He takes the same place now after His death and resurrection, there resuming relations with His disciples. The godly remnant of the Jews must know the rejected Messiah there. His resurrection did not terminate their path of rejection. The Church knows Him yet more blessedly as ascended, and itself one with Him on high; and its rejection is even more decided. However, in Matthew, Galilee is the sign for a converted Jewish remnant till He come to reign in power and glory. The remnant of the last days will know what it is to be cast outside Jerusalem also, and it is as outcasts that they will find real deepening of faith and due preparation of heart for receiving the Lord when he appears in the clouds of heaven. This Galilean resort Luke does not give here. Substantially Mark gives Galilee for the active life of the Saviour like Matthew, because, as has been said, there His ministry was chiefly exercised, and only occasionally in Jerusalem or elsewhere. Therefore the evangelist of the ministry of Jesus draws attention to the place in which He had ministered most Galilee; but even he does not speak of it exclusively. Luke, on the contrary, says nothing of Galilee at this point. The reason seems to me manifest. His theme is the moral state of the disciples, the way of Christ's grace, the Christian path of faith, the place of the word of God, and the person of Christ, only known safely, according to God, in that which sets forth His death. This at least must he the basis.

There is another truth necessary to be known and proved, His real resurrection, who stood in the midst of them with a "Peace to you;" not without His death, but founded on it, and thus declared. So, in the next scene at Jerusalem, this finds its full display; for the Lord Jesus comes into their midst, and partakes of food before their eyes. There was His body; it was risen. Who could longer doubt that it was really the same Jesus who died, and will yet come in glory? "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself!" As we know, the Lord deigns to go yet farther in John; but there it was to convict Thomas's unbelief, as well as with a mysterious typical meaning behind. He would correct the previously absent and still doubting disciple; it is the sight that is the point there. This is not the question here, but rather the reality of the resurrection, and the identity of Jesus risen with Him they had known as their Master, and withal as still man, not a spirit, but having flesh and bones, and capable of eating with them. (VersesLuke 24:36-43; Luke 24:36-43.)

After this our Lord speaks once more of what was written in Moses and prophets and psalms concerning Him. (Ver. Luke 24:44.) It is the word of God again brought out; not merely to two of them, but its unspeakable value for them all.

Further, He opens their understanding to understand the Scriptures, and gives them their great commission, but bids them remain in Jerusalem till endued with power from on high, when He sends them the promise of the Father. (Ver. Luke 24:45-49.) Here the Lord does not say, "Make disciples of all the Gentiles, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." This most fitly has its place in Matthew, spite (yea, because of) His rejection. The suffering but now risen Son of man takes the universal field of the world, and sends His disciples among all the nations to make disciples, and baptize them into the name of the Trinity. It is not, therefore, the old limits of Israel and the lost sheep, but He extends the knowledge of His name and mission outside. Instead of bringing Gentiles to see the glory of Jehovah shining on Zion, they are to be baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, as now revealed fully; and (instead of what Moses commanded) "teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you."

In Luke we have not the charge of the work committed to the workmen, as in Mark, with signatures of God's gracious power accompanying; but here it is the message of a Saviour dead and risen, the Second Man, according to Scripture, and the moral need of man and the grace of God, who proclaims in His name repentance and remission to all the nations or Gentiles. Therefore, just as we have seen the resurrection of our Lord in connection with Jerusalem, where He had been crucified, so He would have the preaching begun there, not going away, as it were, from the guilty city alas! the holy city, and only the more guilty, because such was its name and privilege. But here, on the contrary, by virtue of Christ's death who put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, all disappears in the presence of the infinite grace of God all blessing secured, if there be but the acceptance of Christ and His work. Hence He says, "Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer." No doubt man was guilty beyond measure and without excuse. There were mighty purposes of God to be accomplished; and not only must He rise on the third day, but He enjoins that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name repentance necessarily showing the great moral work in man, remission of sins being God's great provision of grace through redemption to clear the conscience. Both were to be preached in His name. Who that believes and understands the cross could dream longer of man's worthiness? Repentance, so far from allowing it, is the perception and confession that there is no good in man, in me; it is wrought by grace, and is inseparable from faith. It is man giving up himself as altogether bad, man resting upon God as altogether good to the bad, and both proved in the remission of sins by Jesus, whom man, Jew and Gentile, crucified and slew. Remission of sins therefore, with repentance, was to be preached in His name. This was the sole warrant and ground. They were to be preached to all the nations, beginning with Jerusalem.

In Matthew the point appears to be the rejection of Jerusalem, the rejecter, because of its Messiah, the discipular remnant starting from the mountain in Galilee; and the presence of the Lord being guaranteed till the end of the age, when other changes come. In Luke all disappears, except grace, in presence of sin and misery. Absolute grace begins, therefore, with the spot which needed it most, and Jerusalem is expressly named.

We have seen how this chapter settles, if I may so express it, the Christian system on its proper basis, bringing out its chief peculiarities with striking force and beauty. More remains of similar character, especially the very distinct privileges of the understanding opened to understand, and the power of the Holy Ghost; the one given then, the other not till Pentecost. "Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day....... And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." Thus the Holy Ghost was not given yet as an indwelling person, but rather a reiteration of the Father's promise. Remaining in Jerusalem they should be clothed with power an essential thing for Christianity, and quite distinct from spiritual intelligence already conferred, as is apparent also in Peter's word and way in Acts 1:1-26. In the Gospel of John where the person of Jesus shines so conspicuously, the Holy Ghost is set forth personally, with equal distinctness at least, in Luke 14:1-35; Luke 16:1-31. But here this is not the point, but His power, although He be, of course, a person. It is rather the promise of the Spirit's power to act in man that is brought before us. They, like Christ, must be "anointed with the Holy Ghost, and with power;" they must wait for "power from on high" from the risen and ascended Man.

But even so, the Lord Himself would not terminate the Gospel thus. "And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them." It was a spot that used to be most precious to Him, and, observe it well, was not less precious to Him after He rose from the dead. There is no greater mistake than to suppose, that an object of affection to Him before He died ceases to be such to Him when risen. Hence it would seem to give an open contradiction to those that deny the reality of the resurrection body, and of its proper affections. He was indeed a real man, albeit the Lord of glory. He led them out, then, as far as Bethany, the retreat of the Saviour, to which His heart turned in the days of His flesh. "And he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." He that filled with blessing the hearts devoted to Him in His life, was still blessing them when He was separated from them for heaven. "And they worshipped him." Such was the fruit of His blessing, and of His great grace. "And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God." It was meet it should be so. He that blesses us not only communicates a blessing, but gives the power that returns to God a blessing the power of real worship communicated to human hearts on the earth, by the Lord Jesus now risen from the dead. They "were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God;" but they were associated in life and love with One whose glory was far above them or any conceivable precincts of the earth, and were soon to be made one with Him, and to be the vessels of His power by the energy of the Holy Ghost, who would make this evident in due time.

May the Lord be pleased to bless His own word, and to grant that those who love Him and it may approach the scripture with still more confidence! If aught which has been said here tends to remove somewhat of mist from any eyes, encourages, simplifies, or otherwise helps in reading God's word, surely my little labour will not have been in vain, either now or for eternity. The Lord alone can make His own word sanctifying. But it is much to believe it to be what it really is, not (as unbelief thinks) a field of darkness and uncertainty, requiring light upon it, but a light itself, which communicates light to the dark, through the power of the Holy Ghost revealing Christ. May we prove that it is indeed like Christ, of whom it speaks, needed, real, and unerring light to our souls; that it is also the sole, adequate, and irrefragable witness of divine wisdom and grace, but this only as revealed in and by Christ! I take it to be a token of great good that, as in early days, the person of Christ was not only the fiercest battleground and prime object of the final struggle of the apostles on the earth, but was the means whereby the Spirit of God wrought to give a deeper and deepening enjoyment of the truth and grace of God more profoundly searching, no doubt, but at the same time more invigorating for the saints), so no otherwise, unless I be greatly mistaken, is it now. I remember the time, though unable to boast of any very lengthened scene to look back on as a Christian, when at least almost all for I will not say all were more engaged in attacking ecclesiastical error, and spreading much of kindred and other truth (and, in its place and time, important truth). But it was truth that did not so directly build up the soul, nor did it so immediately concern the Lord Himself. And although not a few, who then seemed strong and courageous enough, are gone to the winds (and a similar sifting still goes on, and will to the end), yet sure am I that in the midst of all these troubles and humiliations God has been elevating the standard of Christ for those who are firm and faithful. God has shown that His name is, as ever, a stumbling-stone for unbelief; but for the simple and spiritual a sure foundation, and most precious. The Lord grant that even these our studies of the Gospels, which have been necessarily curt and cursory, may nevertheless give an impulse not only to younger saints, but to those who may be ever so old; for assuredly there is no one, whatever may be his maturity, who will not be all the better for a fuller acquaintance with Him who is from the beginning.