Stage 4: Preparing to Reign with Christ

Stage 4 lies between the journey-marker at Luke 17:11 and another at Luke 19:28. Much of its material is peculiar to Luke either in substance or position.

At Luke 17:22–37 a long paragraph deals with the coming of the Son of Man. Apparently much of this material was repeated during Holy Week (see Matt 24:26–28, 37–41); Luke alone tells us that Christ first gave it on his way up to Jerusalem.

The parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge at Luke 18:1–8 is peculiar to Luke. It makes explicit reference to the coming of the Son of Man (see Luke 18:8).

The theme of the parable of the Pounds at Luke 19:11–27 is the reward of Christ's servants at his second coming. Only Luke records the fact that our Lord told this parable during his ascent to Jerusalem.⁴²

The coming of Christ, then, and his reign over the earth are the themes which will dominate this stage. By this time our Lord was far advanced on his journey, and it was natural that the nearer he got to the capital city, the more frequently questions would be raised as to when the kingdom of God might be likely to appear. Some imagined that it was about to appear at any moment (see Luke 19:11) and it must have been awesomely exciting for them to think ^{[p 298]} that they were accompanying the Son of David on the last few steps towards his enthronement and universal dominion.

What lessons, then, according to Luke, did Christ think appropriate and necessary for people at this stage in the journey? Obviously he had to correct their perspective on time. Twice he spelt out that the events which lay immediately before them were his rejection, crucifixion, burial and resurrection (see Luke 17:25; 18:31–34). Then he told the parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge (see Luke 18:1–8) to forewarn them that their faith might well be tested by an apparent delay in God's vindication of his people and in the coming of the Son of Man (Luke 18:1, 8) even though by God's reckoning these events would come soon.⁴³ And the parable of the Pounds, we are explicitly informed (see Luke 19:11), was told in order to counteract the popular idea that the kingdom of God was imminent, and to teach his disciples that they would have an interval of responsible service between his ascension and return.

Granted these corrections and explanations, however, the main aim of our Lord's teaching at this stage was to concentrate his disciples' attention on the coming kingdom. Suffering there would be at Jerusalem. But he was on the way 'to a distant country to receive a kingdom and to return' (Luke 19:12); and if his disciples could not accompany him all the way to the distant country at this time, they would need to know what to expect when he returned and how to prepare themselves for it.

We may notice first of all, then, not only what prominence, but also what balance Luke gives to his coverage of our Lord's teaching on the coming of the Son of Man. The long paragraph at Luke 17:22–37 deals with that coming as a time of catastrophic judgment comparable to the flood and to the destruction of Sodom. The long passages at Luke 18:18–30 and Luke 19:11–27 look at other aspects: they consider not only the coming of the kingdom, but entry into it, and they talk of the coming of Christ mostly, though not exclusively, as the time ^{[p 299]} when Christ shall reward his servants (note particularly Luke 18:28–30).

Next we should notice the devices by which Luke weaves his major and minor themes together so that the stage as a whole shall present a coherent message. First among these is a simple feature of his vocabulary. Through the stage he constantly plays on the twin ideas of 'appearing' and 'seeing' at both the physical and the metaphorical levels. At the second coming, we are told, the Son of Man will be 'like the lightning' which suddenly bursts forth and is simultaneously and inescapably visible everywhere (see Luke 17:24). The Son of Man will be 'revealed' (Luke 17:30). The kingdom of God will 'appear' (Luke 19:11). In the meantime Christ's disciples will desire to 'see' one of the days of the Son of Man and shall not 'see' it (Luke 17:22). They are moreover warned against being deceived into going looking for the Messiah here or there (see Luke 17:23). The idea is, then, that the Son of Man and his kingdom will for an indeterminate period be hidden, veiled, invisible; and then suddenly the veil will be removed and the king and his kingdom will come in visible form.

But—and here is Luke's point—the Son of Man who will be revealed at that time and universally recognized, will prove to be none other than the one who earlier visited our earth and travelled the road from Galilee to Jerusalem. Comparatively few saw who he was then. But some did; and their perception saved them. One leper out of ten saw not only that he had been physically healed (see Luke 17:15), but saw its significance and so returned to Christ, from whom he received the additional gift of spiritual salvation (see Luke 17:19). Similarly, the blind man near Jericho perceived that the one whom the crowds saw as Jesus of Nazareth was in fact the messianic Son of David; and his perception brought him not only physical sight but salvation and a completely different way of life (see Luke 18:35–43). Again, Zacchaeus, the chief tax-collector, conceived a desire 'to see who Jesus was'; and what he saw led to a thoroughgoing conversion: 'salvation came to his house' (Luke 19:1–10).

On the other hand a rich ruler, in spite of the flattering way in which he addressed Christ (see Luke 18:18–19), did not really perceive who Christ was. As a result he rejected Christ's word and so ^{[p 300]} threw away his opportunity of entering the kingdom of God when it eventually comes (see Luke 18:23–24). Likewise in the parable of the Pounds, one servant out of the ten throws away all possibility of active participation with the Lord in the government of his coming kingdom; and he does it as a result of his perverted view of what the Lord is really like (see Luke 19:21).

Another device which Luke uses to weave his various themes together in this stage is to allow, as he has often done before, one of the prominent features of a later story to recall a prominent feature of an earlier one. A single example will suffice. The lesson taught by the parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge is the need for persistence in prayer in spite of discouragements (see Luke 18:1), and it assures those who 'cry out to God day and night' (Luke 18:7) that their crying will be heard and eventually rewarded. The Greek word Luke uses for 'cry out' is boaō. Some twenty-five verses later he begins to tell another story (see Luke 18:35–43). It is about a beggar who 'cried out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me"' (Luke 18:38). The Greek word Luke uses for 'cry out' is again boaō. The crowd tried to silence him, but he persisted until he got what he cried for (see Luke 18:39–42). The echo between the parable and the story is unmistakable; what the point of it is we shall have to consider later on.

Yet another device which Luke has again adopted quite frequently in this stage, is to place side by side two paragraphs which deal with a common theme from opposite but complementary points of view. But this and other features can most easily be seen if we now as usual make ourselves a table of contents (see Table 11). ^{[p 301]}

Table 11 Stage 4 of the Going Luke 17:11–19:28

The movements

1. On the coming of the kingdom (Luke 17:11–18:14)
2. On entry into the kingdom (Luke 18:15–19:28) ^{[p 302]}

1. On the coming of the kingdom (Luke 17:11–18:14)

i. The return of the leper (Luke 17:11–19)

The first thing to notice about this story is the crucial part played by geographical and spatial details in the development of the narrative. Luke is not content to tell us that this incident took place in a village somewhere on the journey to Jerusalem, as he did for instance at Luke 10:38. He specifies that it happened as our Lord was travelling along the border between Samaria and Galilee. Now the Galileans were Israelites, but the Samaritans, as our Lord later points out, were aliens (see Luke 17:18). Mention of the border area between the two gives the story its first hint of separation, distance, alienation; Luke 17:12 gives us the second: there ten men with leprosy met him. They 'stood at a distance' and had to shout to make their voices carry across the intervening space. The law did not allow lepers to come near healthy people. We notice next that Christ did not go to them, touch and heal them as he had done with other lepers (see Luke 5:12–13). He kept his distance and simply told them to go and show themselves to the priests. Only as they went were they cleansed. But by now, of course, the distance between them and Christ was increasing.

Presently one of the lepers realized that he was cleansed. He was of course grateful to God; but it is the way in which he expressed his gratitude to God that is crucial to the lesson which this story has to teach. He could, we might think, have been grateful to God while carrying straight on to the priests without ever coming back to Christ. But no! What Christ expected him and all the others to do was to 'return', that is to return to Christ, in order to 'give glory to God' (Luke 17:18). Nor was it that Christ merely wanted them to thank him personally as well as thanking God, though the returning leper did that; this phrase at Luke 17:18 implies that in order to give true glory to God in this affair they had to return to Christ.

One leper did return, and it is delightful to see how as he did so all distance and alienation of every kind between himself and Christ, between himself and God, was removed. The need for social separation was gone, of course. He no longer had to stand at a distance: ^{[p 303]} he came and fell at the Lord's feet. He was a Samaritan, Jesus was a Jew; the national and religious barrier meant nothing now. True, leprosy had long since brought him together with nine Jewish lepers in a common separation from both Jews and Samaritans; but cleansing had brought him to recognize the divine power of Jesus the Jew and to accept its implications. But most important of all, as grateful recognition of God's power in Christ brought him back to the person through whom that power had been expressed, that person was able to grant him salvation (see Luke 17:19): not just physical healing such as the other nine received, but forgiveness and reconciliation and eternal life, and the removal of all alienation and distance between himself and God caused by his sin and moral uncleanness.

What then of the nine? The story does not tell us what happened to them. We may not suppose that they went to the priests like a bunch of atheists grudgingly submitting to religious ceremonies which they did not believe in. For all we know they may have gone to the priests like good orthodox Jews singing grateful praise to God. That was not good enough for Christ. Vague general gratitude to God was no adequate response to what had happened. The miraculous power of God had manifested itself to them through Christ. In Christ, to borrow an earlier phrase (see Luke 11:20), the very kingdom of God had come upon them. They were expected to respond by returning to Christ in order to give their praise to God (see Luke 17:18).

Ingratitude for the general gifts of the Creator is bad enough (see Rom 1:21); and many have been the people who in dire trouble have called on God for special deliverance and being granted it, have ungratefully gone further from God than they were before. But our story is dealing with something even more sad and serious. The healing of the lepers was not an ordinary common gift of the Creator to his creatures, nor simply some special gift of providence. It was a miraculous sign intended to point them to Christ so that through faith in Christ they might receive salvation and eternal life. It had that effect with the alien Samaritan: the sign after all was not difficult to see nor the direction in which it pointed. But the Jews in the party were like the crowds at the feeding of the five thousand. Those ^{[p 304]} crowds saw the miracle, but they were not interested to see what it was a sign of, nor to seek the one to whom it pointed, except in the hope of getting more bread and fish (see John 6:26). So with the nine lepers. Salvation and eternal life and the kingdom of God had come within their reach; but not even gratitude could interest them in anything more than their physical healing. In their leprosy they had at least come near Christ; when he gave them physical healing, they walked out of his life, as far as we know, for ever. All God's gifts are meant to lead us to the person who is his supreme gift to men. It is strange behaviour to take them and ignore him.

ii a. The coming of the kingdom is not visible (Luke 17:20–21)

There follow now two distinct paragraphs, one addressed to the Pharisees, the other to the disciples. Both deal with the coming of the kingdom, but each from a different point of view.

In this first paragraph, when the Pharisees ask 'When will the kingdom of God come?' our Lord replies 'The kingdom of God does not come with observation', that is, you could watch very carefully for its coming and you would never see it come. 'Neither', he adds, 'shall they say, "See here! or there!"'; and the reason for that is that it does not come in any externally visible way, and therefore it is no good looking to see it come.

Now in saying this our Lord was obviously not intending to deny in advance what he was about to tell his disciples about the universal visibility of the coming of the kingdom in its future outward form (see Luke 17:24). What he was telling the Pharisees was that there was another and prior sense in which the coming of the kingdom must be thought of. In that sense the kingdom of God was already among them (see Luke 17:21).⁴⁴ They were at that very moment looking at the king himself, though they did not realize it. Their inability to see who he was, moreover, was not due to any lack of signs. He had done many. But the signs were only pointers; actually recognizing Jesus to be God's Messiah was, and remains, a ^{[p 305]} matter of inner revelation and spiritual sight (see Luke 10:21). Similarly, entering the kingdom in its spiritual phase was an essentially inner process of repentance, faith and a spiritual rebirth brought about by the Spirit whose activity was as invisible as the wind (see John 3:3–8). It still is.

What the Pharisees urgently needed to do, then, was to concentrate a little less on the future external form of the kingdom and a little more on its present spiritual phase; to recognize the king and to enter the kingdom. Failing that, they would be unprepared for the coming of the kingdom in its future form even if they saw it come.

ii b. The coming of the Son of Man will be visible (Luke 17:22–37)

On the other hand it would be equally wrong to fall into the opposite mistake from the Pharisees and so to concentrate on the present spiritual phase of the kingdom as to forget or even deny the fact that one day the kingdom will come outwardly in power and great glory. Far from being invisible that coming will be instantaneously and universally visible (see Luke 17:24).

In regard to this coming our Lord proceeded to issue two warnings. First, his disciples would naturally come to long for his appearing; but that very longing could lead them into wishfully thinking he had come when he had not. He therefore pointed out once more the folly of those who would say 'See, there,' or 'See, here' (Luke 17:23); only this time the folly lay differently from before. There (see Luke 17:21) it was foolish to say 'See, here', when what was supposedly being pointed at was by definition invisible. Here (see Luke 17:23) the folly lies in suggesting that something needs to be pointed out when in fact it is impossible for anyone not to see it. The disciples, therefore, were to be wary of all claims that the Messiah had been actually sighted somewhere or other, or that the kingdom had already come. When the Son of Man appeared, no one would need to tell anybody.

The second warning was (see Luke 17:25–30) that before his glorious appearing he must 'first be rejected by this generation'. When his disciples eventually saw him suffer, this prediction would steady ^{[p 306]} their faith (cf. Luke 24:6–8). But in its context in the discourse it serves another purpose as well. It explains why in spite of generations of Christian preaching, the second coming will take the world by surprise. The term 'rejected by this generation' points specifically to the fact that his generation would examine his claims to be Messiah and repudiate them. As long, therefore, as Israel or the nations for that matter held that view, they would deny the very possibility of his return. Hence their surprise and unpreparedness when it takes place.

Two analogies are used to drive the lesson home. During 'the days of Noah' men disbelieved his preaching (see 2 Pet 2:5); the day of the flood surprised and destroyed them. During 'the days of Lot' the Sodomites mocked at his testimony; the day Lot left, to their consternation the judgment of God actually fell and destroyed them.

In the same way, after a long period of warning largely disregarded by the world, there shall come a day when the Son of Man shall suddenly and unexpectedly be revealed (see Luke 17:30; 1 Thess 5:3). It will be a day of apocalyptic judgment (see 2 Thess 1:7–9; 2:8–12).

Now, Noah's contemporaries and the Sodomites of Lot's day were particularly evil (see Gen 6:11–13; 19:1–11); but it was not their indulgence in lurid sins which left them so unprepared for God's judgment when it came. According to Christ it was their total preoccupation with life's normal activities, all of them quite proper in their way, to the total exclusion of any concern for God's warnings and gospel (see Luke 17:27–28). Indeed, with Sodom already burning behind her under the wrath of Almighty God, Lot's wife still looked longingly back to the goods and activities she had so reluctantly left behind; and in doing so she perished (see Luke 17:32). Human nature changes little. Some people are so taken up with material things, that Christ thinks it necessary to warn them that on the very day in which he will be revealed to execute the wrath of God on evil centres and conglomerations of human iniquity, they will be tempted to go back into the house or city to get their favourite possessions ^{[p 307]} because they cannot imagine life without them. For the sake of things they will lose life itself (see Luke 17:31–33).

Now when the flood came upon a godless world it 'took them all away [Gk. airō]', says Matthew 24:39; 'it destroyed them', says Luke 17:27. It thus removed the mass of corruption which was filling the earth (Gen 6:13). The believing righteous, safe in the ark, were left untouched. So shall it be again when the Son of Man comes: evil people shall be removed. In that night two shall be in one bed, the one shall be taken (Gk. paralambanō), the other shall be left. There shall be two women grinding together, one shall be taken, the other left (cf. Matt 13:41–43). The disciples ask where this discriminating judgment will take place. It seems that the Lord's warning not to return to the city or to their houses had led them to think that the judgment would be focused on a particular place or places. The Lord replied somewhat enigmatically: 'Where the body is, there the vultures will assemble' (Luke 17:37). Scavenging vultures are a repulsive sight, but they do a very necessary job. They are nature's way of removing masses of putrefaction from the face of the earth. The judgment is no pleasant topic; but one day to stop evil corrupting the earth beyond redemption, Christ will come and 'destroy those who destroy the earth' (Rev 11:18).

iii a. The widow and the unjust judge (Luke 18:1–8)

For the ungodly, then, the coming of the Son of Man will be an event of unrelieved disaster; but the paragraph which now follows looks at that coming from a completely different point of view. For God's elect the assurance of that coming is a veritable gospel, for then all the wrongs which they have suffered will be put right. All down the ages God's elect have from time to time suffered injustices and persecutions, and the sufferings which they will be called upon to endure at the end of the age before the appearance of Christ will be of unparalleled severity (see Matt 24:21–22). It is only natural that they should cry to God, not for revenge on their enemies, but for God to intervene and put a stop to all the evils perpetrated on them by unprincipled individuals and governments. After all, is God not interested in justice and in seeing justice done? ^{[p 308]}

True, some have considered this cry for injustice as a somewhat sub-Christian attitude, appropriate perhaps for Jews of the pre-Christian era, but hardly in character for Christians. Christians should follow the example of Jesus who prayed forgiveness for those who crucified him. But Scripture tells us also that Jesus 'committed himself to him who judges righteously' (1 Pet 2:23); and the very exhortation to the Christian not to avenge himself is based on God's personal assurance 'Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord' (Rom 12:19).

The problem then is not that Christians should cry to God to be avenged but that when they cry he remains silent and appears to do nothing until in the end God's elect are tempted to think that it is no use appealing to God. Either he does not hear them, or else he does not really care. Yet, Christ insists, it is imperative that God's elect should persist in praying and not give up (see Luke 18:1); for to cease praying would be to call in question the very character of God. The judge in the parable was wicked and unprincipled enough, caring for neither God nor man. But even he eventually gave in to the widow's persistent pleading. And shall we give up appealing to God and so make him out to be more unfeeling, more unjust than the unjust judge himself? To give up praying would be calamitous: it would imply that God, if there is one, is so indifferent to justice that we can have no reasonable hope for a coming reign of justice on earth nor of any heaven above worth going to.

One day God will avenge his elect. Christ stakes his truthfulness on it (Luke 18:8). God will intervene: the Son of Man will come. Justice will be done. But will he find us still believing in God's justice (Luke 18:8)? If meanwhile we have stopped praying, how shall we then satisfactorily explain to him why we doubted his character?

iii b. The Pharisee and the tax-collector (Luke 18:9–14)

The thought of Christ coming to execute the judgment of God on all evil and unrighteous men leads on naturally to the question raised in this next parable: who are the unrighteous, and who are the ^{[p 309]} just? Here we need to be very careful. It is all too easy for people, particularly if they have suffered some injustice or other—and even if they haven't—to regard themselves as the innocent and good, and to take it for granted that it is other people who are wicked. We need therefore to watch the stance we take before God in our prayers; for if our persistence in prayer shows what we think of God's character, our prayers also reveal, sometimes without our realizing it, what we think of ourselves. And that could be disastrously wrong.

The Pharisee in the parable was a very religious man, and doubtless he and his friends had often been unjustly treated by tax-collectors. This led him therefore to take his stand before God on the ground of his own good deeds and to point out to God how much better he was than the loose-living men around him and, of course, than the tax-collector over the way. This was misguided indeed. By men's relative standards of justice he might perhaps have been better than the tax-collector; but he was forgetting that judged by God's absolute standards of justice he in common with all men, religious and irreligious, cheated as well as cheaters, persecuted as well as persecutors, stood under God's condemnation as a sinner who fell short of his glory. Taking his stand on his own merits, the Pharisee went home from the temple, unaccepted, unjustified and still under God's displeasure.

The tax-gatherer took a different stance: he stood at a distance (see Luke 18:13), like the lepers of Luke 17:12, owning the gulf that his sins had put between himself and God, and making no attempt to bridge it by any talk of what good deeds he had to his credit. Feeling himself unworthy even to look up to God's heaven, he confessed the absolute justice of God's condemnation of his sin, and in his utter spiritual bankruptcy simply cast himself on the mercy of God. On those grounds God accepted him. Nor did he have to wait until the second coming to know it: he went home from the temple justified (see Luke 18:14). All distance between himself and God was gone forever. He could await the coming of the Lord in confidence and peace. ^{[p 310]}

2. On entry into the kingdom (Luke 18:15–19:28)

If Movement 1 has dealt largely with the coming of the king and with his future kingdom, Movement 2 will deal with the question of entry into that kingdom. Here again, as in Luke 17:20–37, we shall need to think both of the present spiritual phase of Christ's kingdom and of its future outward manifestation, for if we wish to enter the latter, we must make sure we enter the former. So first there come two stories dealing explicitly with the conditions for entry into the kingdom.

i a. The blessing of the infants (Luke 18:15–17)

At Luke 17:20–21 the Pharisees, intent on looking for the glory and power of the coming kingdom, failed to recognize the king himself standing in front of them. Apparently he was not grand enough for them. Now the disciples make the opposite mistake. Some mothers bring their babies for Christ's blessing, and the disciples rebuke them. Obviously they thought that babies were not important or grand enough for Christ to spend time and effort on them; and our Lord had to correct them; 'of such' he said 'is the kingdom of heaven'. A little child takes its food, its parents' love and protection, because they are given, without beginning to think of whether it deserves them, or whether it is important enough to merit such attention. So must we all receive God's kingdom and enter into it (see Luke 18:17).

Most Christians, to be sure, would have no difficulty in adopting the child's attitude themselves in this context; it is when, like the apostles, we start engaging in 'Christian work' that we are liable to fall into the temptation of thinking that it is more important to attract 'leaders' and 'magnates' to Christ rather than the Mrs Mopps of this world. According to James (see James 2:1–13) that is to break the whole law. The fact is that when it comes to entry into the kingdom of God none is more important than another.

i b. The rich ruler (Luke 18:18–34)

On the other hand, this next paragraph will teach us that the king and his kingdom are important beyond all else, and if we do not believe them to be all-important, scarcely shall we enter into ^{[p 311]} the kingdom. The rich ruler is the classic example of the principle. Being rich he had presumably enjoyed life in this age and he thought he would like to have eternal life in the age to come as well. He had always been able to pay for what he had in this life, and he was quite prepared to pay, so he thought, for eternal life in the kingdom: 'what must I do', he asked, 'to inherit eternal life?' (Luke 18:18). In actual fact he had woefully underestimated both the king himself and the kingdom.

He approached Christ with a polite 'Good teacher', but Christ pulled him up sharp. Did he really understand and mean what he said? No one was good except God alone.

It was no theological quibble. If Jesus was in fact God incarnate and the ruler had come to see that was so, then of course the ruler would be prepared to do whatever he said without question. It would be nonsense to ask for admittance into the kingdom and yet from the very outset to refuse to do what the king himself said. But the ruler was not prepared to do what Jesus told him. His 'Good teacher' turned out to be mere polite talk.

He had come, we recall, asking what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Christ told him how he could have not only eternal life but treasure in heaven (see Luke 18:22). But when he discovered that he would have to choose between treasure in heaven and his considerable earthly possessions he decided that the latter were after all the more valuable of the two. That is the difficulty with those who are in any way rich. Not only can preoccupation with possessions leave them unprepared for the judgments that will accompany the coming of the kingdom (see Luke 17:26–33), but their present possessions make the kingdom of God appear very much less than the one supremely valuable thing. It becomes at best a thing which they would gladly have in addition to their riches if they could conveniently do so, but not something to be chosen if need be to the exclusion of all else. And as long as they think of the kingdom like that it is doubtful if they will ever enter it.

Now when Peter saw the rich man caught in the snare of riches, he felt moved to point out to Christ that he and his fellow apostles ^{[p 312]} had left everything in order to follow Christ (see Luke 18:28). His remark seems to have carried the unfortunate suggestion that their sacrifice was, compared with the rich young man's attitude, wonderfully meritorious. Christ corrected it immediately by making one observation (see Luke 18:29–30) and later by making another (see Luke 18:31–34). First he pointed out that every disciple is abundantly compensated for any loss he may incur for the sake of the kingdom of God. Not only does he get eternal life in the age to come, but here and now in this world he receives many more friends, homes and 'family' than ever he has to leave behind. Sacrifice for Christ is not really loss: it is an investment that provides both dividend and capital growth.

Secondly, sometime later—how much later Luke does not tell us—Christ took the apostles aside and told them more (cf. Luke 17:25) of the detail of the sufferings that awaited him at the end of the road and how after those sufferings would come the resurrection. Had they immediately understood what he was saying, perhaps Peter would have been embarrassed at having recently reminded Christ of what he and his fellow apostles had given up for Christ's sake. But they did not understand; and Luke uses three clauses (Luke 18:34) to stress that fact and its explanation: 'this saying was hidden from them'. One day, of course, their eyes would be opened.

ii a. A blind beggar (Luke 18:35–43)

The next two stories will strike echoes in our minds. First they will recall our Lord's warning against riches: 'how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God' (Luke 18:25), and his audience's reply: 'Who then can be saved?' (Luke 18:26). Our two stories give the answer. One is about a poor beggar (see Luke 18:35–43), the other about a rich tax-collector (see Luke 19:1–10). The poor man was saved (Luke 18:42); yes, but so was the rich man (Luke 19:9–10), proving the truth of our Lord's earlier comment: 'things that are impossible with men are possible with God' (Luke 18:27). The rich man, of course, needed to be saved. His way of making a living was to some large extent fraudulent; salvation would need, among other things, to save him from that way of making a living. But in case we should think that the poor man was ^{[p 313]} automatically better than the rich, Luke points out that the poor man also needed to be saved. His begging was equally degrading; he too needed to be saved from his unsatisfactory way of making a living.

The key to the poor man's salvation will revive other echoes in our minds. How the eyes of his heart had been enlightened (see Eph 1:18) we are not told; but long before he received his physical sight he had seen in Jesus far more than other people discerned. They saw in Jesus simply the man from Nazareth (Luke 18:37). He saw in him the royal messianic Son of David (see Luke 18:37–38) with all the resources of the kingdom of God at his command. Vigorously he appealed to him for the gift of sight and the king gave him his request. He never begged again; his prayer had gained him true independence. Even today someone who suffers from some disability which makes him totally dependent on others in one sense, can find in prayer a means of conferring on others far greater benefits than they confer on him.

When the beggar first appealed to the Lord, however, the crowd tried to silence him (see Luke 18:39). His persistence in crying out until he got what he wanted cannot but recall the widow who, in spite of endless discouragements, persisted in her pleading with the unjust judge until she too got what she wanted (see Luke 18:1–8). Their tactics were the same: but it will be instructive to consider the difference in what they received. The widow managed to get the judge at last to give her justice against her adversary; and our Lord used the parable, we remember, to direct our faith to the time when the Son of Man shall come (see Luke 18:8) in all his divine power and majesty to execute God's justice and put right earth's wrongs. That vision of the coming Christ is true, and will sustain us in times when we are called upon to bear injustice.

But it was a very different vision that filled the eyes of the blind man when his persistence was rewarded: not, of course, the Son of Man appearing in the glory of his Father and of the holy angels; but not even a figure in royal clothes, with a noble entourage, on his way to his throne. Simply a dust-stained traveller on his way to Jerusalem, and, as we have just been reminded (see Luke 18:31–33), on his way to being mocked, insulted, spit on, scourged and killed. Yet the blind ^{[p 314]} man's new sight was not playing tricks with him: this was the Son of David, this was what he was like, this was what being the king must mean for him. The blind man followed him on his road (Luke 18:43), grateful to God that the Son of David had ever come his way. When he eventually saw what happened to the king at Jerusalem, perhaps he realized that if the king had not come near enough for men to spit on him, he might not have come near enough to hear a blind man's cry. Be that as it may, the king's character will never change. The king who served and suffered for men on earth, will serve them still in glory (see Luke 12:37; 22:27). Hence the delight of being in his kingdom.

Meanwhile in the sure knowledge that one day our prayers will be heard and the Son of Man will come and put all our wrongs right, we too are still called, says Peter (see 1 Pet 2:18–24), to follow the king on his road to innocent suffering in the cause of men's salvation. 'The road to entry into the kingdom', says Paul (Acts 14:22), 'lies through many tribulations.' Indeed if our eyes have been opened to see and understand what was hidden from the apostles (Luke 18:34) that the king's sufferings are his chiefest glory; if we have seen the king who was rich become poor for the sake of us poverty-stricken beggars that we through his poverty might become rich; then we shall willingly hasten to suffer with him now, that we may share his glory then (Rom 8:17).

ii b. A rich tax-collector (Luke 19:1–10)

Rich Zacchaeus was also saved, and it was a sight of the Lord Jesus that in its way saved him too. He was a short man (Luke 19:3), perhaps with a short man's inner urge to prove himself and gain recognition. If so his wealth had brought him no sense of acceptance either with God or men. The synagogue disapproved of him and the people shunned him: they despised him and his misgotten wealth; and he would have discovered the hard way that money cannot compensate for lack of acceptance. He was lost. How then could a man who was lost find his way into the kingdom? He couldn't, of course; but he could be found and brought in, if someone was prepared to come and seek for him and bring salvation to his very house (Luke 19:9–10). ^{[p 315]}

And now Luke is telling us, with even more frequency than usual, that Christ was on a journey (Luke 18:31, 35; 19:1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10). He had been on the journey a long time, but as he passed through Jericho certain things came swiftly together. Zacchaeus conceived a desire—who shall say where from?—to see who Jesus was and climbed up a tree to get a fuller view; and Jesus with the precision of an eternal purpose made for the tree, stopped, looked up into Zacchaeus' downward peering face, and told him to come down because he had to stay at his house. In that moment Zacchaeus not only saw who Jesus was, he discovered his own long-lost identity. He was a man loved by God with an eternal love, and longed for so much that God had sent his Son on purpose to find him and to rescue him from his lostness by coming personally to his home and bringing the sense of acceptance with God into his very heart.

Zacchaeus presently discovered something else. Acceptance with God had given him what he had sought in vain for years from wealth. The compulsive drive to make money had gone. Indeed, he felt he no longer needed half his wealth and he gave it away. In addition, the thought of entertaining Christ to a meal paid for by money which he had got by fraud, now seemed repulsive and impossible. He confessed his sinful practice and promised to make full restitution and to compensate his victims. It was a programme of social concern more generous by far than the Pharisee himself had announced as he stood in the temple (Luke 18:11–12). It was not the criticisms of the crowd that made him do it (Luke 19:7); their criticisms had never produced any such result before. And certainly Christ had not made it a condition of his acceptance of him. But through being accepted Zacchaeus had recovered his true identity: a true son of Abraham (Luke 19:9), that very rich ancestor of his, who was first justified by his faith (Gen 15:6) and then lived to justify his profession of faith by his works (Gen 22; Jas 2:21–23).

With this we perceive once more the care with which Luke has selected and arranged his material. The tax-collector of the parable at Luke 18:9–14 was justified by God's grace even though he had no good works to boast of like the Pharisee had. Zacchaeus was accepted and ^{[p 316]} justified on the same ground. But his salvation led to a completely changed attitude to his social responsibilities. And it was important that it should: for if Zacchaeus was going to reign with Christ in Christ's coming administration, he needed to learn and practise the Christian attitude to wealth in this present age. To profess conversion and then to carry on behaving like the rich ruler is a contradiction in terms.

iii. The return of the Lord (Luke 19:11–28)

All through this second movement we have been thinking of what it means and takes to enter the kingdom of God. For the most part we have been thinking of entry into its present spiritual phase by personal faith in the Saviour. Now we must in this final paragraph think what it will mean to enter the kingdom in its future outward form at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It will mean for all true believers eternal life (see Luke 18:30). It will mean more. Much of this parable is a self-evident allegory of the ascension of Christ and of his return with the kingdoms of this world finally and fully committed to his authority (see Rev 11:15–18). Even if we avoid the mistake of confusing the allegory with the thing allegorized, the parable still clearly teaches that when the Lord returns to reign, his people shall reign with him (see 2 Tim 2:12; Rev 3:26–27).

What then will reigning mean? It will mean sharing the glory of the reigning house (see Rom 8:17; Heb 2:5–10). For some, for most perhaps, it will mean active participation in the government (see Matt 19:28; 25:31; 1 Cor 6:2–3). But here the parable teaches us a number of exceedingly important principles.

First, the amount of practical responsibility that will actually be given to each individual believer in the coming kingdom will in part depend on that believer's faithful use and development of the resources committed to his or her trust by the Lord during his absence. In this connection we might well remember the Apostle Peter's observation (see 2 Pet 1:10–11): it is one thing to enter into the eternal kingdom, and all believers will do that. It is another ^{[p 317]} thing to be given an abundant entrance into that kingdom. That will be for those who in the power of their faith have availed themselves of God's resources and added to their character the necessary graces and qualities (see 2 Pet 1:3–8).

Second, the Lord has entrusted some of his resources to every one of his servants: the number ten in the parable is presumably a representative number.

Thirdly, at his return, he will call all his servants to account for what they have done with their trust. The faithful will be rewarded; and the reward will be in terms of further responsibility and added trust and increased work, as well as the enjoyment of joining with Messiah in his unimaginably vast new enterprises. But what of the unfaithful?

There is one such in our parable and he presents us with a problem. His counterpart in the parable of the Talents (see Matt 25:24–30) is thrown into the outer darkness amid the weeping and gnashing of teeth. He seems evidently to represent a false servant exposed at last as an unbeliever. But ours is a different parable; and in our parable the unfaithful servant is treated differently. He has his pound taken away; but he is not said to be thrown out into the outer darkness, and he seems to be distinguished from 'these my enemies' who are brought before the king and slain (Luke 19:27).

What is it, then, that still makes it difficult to think that the unfaithful servant in our parable represents a true believer? It is his whole concept of the king. Asked to account for his failure to work for his lord, he replies that it is his lord's fault for being a person who always expected to get something for nothing, to get something out where he had put nothing in (see Luke 19:21). Fear of him, fear of doing wrong, he adds, has paralysed him.

Our question, then, resolves itself into this: could anyone who truly believes that Christ gave his life for him, ever turn round and tell the Lord that in asking him to work for him, the Lord was asking for something for nothing? People can be ungrateful, witness the nine lepers. But would a believer ever be so ungrateful? And would anyone who believes that Christ's death has secured him ^{[p 318]} forgiveness for all his sins, ever tell Christ that he was afraid to work for him in case he made a mistake?

Perhaps our question is too theoretical or too literary. Perhaps we had better ask ourselves what we imagine our own behaviour is even now telling the Lord about ourselves and about what we think of him, if we likewise are not faithfully engaged on the business he has entrusted to our care.

Believer or unbeliever, the unfaithful servant had his pound taken away. Failure to work for the Lord will not cost a believer his salvation; but it will certainly cost him his reward (see 1 Cor 3:15).

Let us end, however, on a happier note. The leper who was grateful to the Lord for what he had done for him and returned to give him thanks, found that his gratitude led on to something higher: in addition to his healing he received the gift of salvation. So the servant in our parable who worked faithfully for the lord found his faithfulness had a snowball effect. The one pound gained ten; the ten pounds brought him authority over ten cities (see Luke 19:16–17); and over and above all that he was given the unfaithful servant's pound as well. Given his way with pounds, this additional pound would soon turn itself into an additional city. It is a law of the kingdom, apparently, that to the one who already has, more shall be given (see Luke 19:26).

Notes

⁴²Matthew's counterpart is the very different parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matt 20:1–16), spoken during the ascent and likewise dealing with the question of reward.

⁴³For a long and helpful discussion of the translation of Luke 18:7 see Marshall, Luke, 674–7. The renderings given in rsv and NIV are doubtful in themselves and spoil the thought-flow of the passage.

⁴⁴It is a mistake to translate our Lord's phrase 'the kingdom of God is within you'. See Marshall, Luke, 655. ^{[p 319]}