Stage 5: Christ and the Goal of Redemption

We now enter Stage 5 and our first task is to decide its extent. The task is easy, since Luke 9:51 is the pivotal verse in the thought-flow of the whole Gospel. Though little more than a third of the way through the book, it announces that the time for Christ to be taken up into heaven is now approaching, and Christ accordingly sets himself resolutely to go to Jerusalem. From this point onwards the narrative will become a record of our Lord's journey from earth to heaven, which is why we have labelled all that follows Luke 9:50 'The Going'. But if 'The Going' starts at Luke 9:51, we are left with a mere fifty verses (Luke 9:1–50) to form the last stage of 'The Coming'.

At first sight this is a little surprising. We might reasonably have expected that as the last stage of 'The Coming' Stage 5 would have functioned as an obvious and powerful climax to all that has gone before. Perhaps it does, for importance and power do not necessarily depend on length. Even so, with only fifty verses Stage 5 is the briefest stage of 'The Coming'. Why so brief?

Whatever the reason, the brevity is at least deliberate. Com­par­i­son of this part of the Gospel with its counterparts in Matthew and Mark reveals that while Luke has chosen to put very little in this stage which Matthew and Mark do not have, he has chosen to leave out large amounts of what they do have. After his brief mention of Herod at Luke 9:7–9, he has no account of the birthday dance that led ^{[p 158]} to John the Baptist's execution as Matthew (see Matt 14:1–12) and Mark (see Mark 6:14–29) have. All three have the feeding of the five thousand and the confession of Jesus as God's Messiah. Between these two stories, however, Matthew (see Matt 14:22–16:12) records the walking on the sea, the return to Gennesaret, the controversy over washing of hands, the Syrophoenician woman, healings and the feeding of the four thousand, the demand for a sign, and the warning against the leaven of the Pharisees. Mark in this position (see Mark 6:45–8:26) has this same long list of stories and a few more of his own. Luke has none of them: in his narrative the feeding of the five thousand (see Mark 9:10–17) is followed immediately by the confession of Jesus as God's Messiah (see Mark 9:18–27).

Luke's brevity, therefore, was not it seems forced upon him by any lack of source material. We can say, if we wish, that it came about because he wanted to include in the second part of his Gospel a large amount of interesting material which Matthew and Mark do not record (which is perfectly true); but that he was hard up for space because of the limit imposed on book length by ancient methods of book production (a very doubtful argument, since he could have written a many-volumned work like Thucydides if he had so wished); and that therefore the mechanical necessity of creating room later on for his special material compelled him to omit from chapter 9 most of the stories which Matthew and Mark have included. Whether we find such an explanation sufficient will depend, in part at least, on whether we think that practical necessity is enough by itself to account for the choices and decisions of a writer of Luke's ability—let alone for the mind of the Holy Spirit who inspired him. After all, another—or an additional—reason is possible. It could be that Luke wrote these fifty verses, these and no more, because this particular selection of material said all that he wanted to say at this point in his Gospel, and that he would not have said more even if he had had all the space in the world to say it in.

Whatever the truth of the matter, when we look at the way he has put his selected material together, the marks of very deliberate ^{[p 159]} composition are at once apparent. See the table of contents for Stage 5 (Table 7).

We notice that the effect of Luke's selection and arrangement of material is that the leading themes of verses 1–27 recur in a kind of mirror-image in verses 28–50. Since the effect is presumably deliberate on Luke's part, our exposition will have to try to see the point and purpose of this arrangement.

Meanwhile one thing is obvious: the most important part of the material lies in the two central paragraphs, Luke 9:18–27 and Luke 9:28–36. These two paragraphs make, each in its own way, three major statements. The first concerns the identity of Jesus. At Luke 9:20 Peter on behalf of all the apostles formally states the conviction to which they have come, that Jesus is God's Messiah. Then at Luke 9:35 the voice from the cloud declares Jesus to be 'My Son, My Chosen One'. The second concerns Christ's imminent rejection, death, and resurrection. Luke 9:22 announces these events in plain straightforward language; Luke 9:31 refers to the same events but in the richly evocative phrase 'his exodus which he must accomplish at Jerusalem'. The third concerns Christ's second coming. At Luke 9:26 Christ openly speaks of the time when the Son of Man shall come in his own glory and that of the Father and of the holy angels; while the transfiguration (see Luke 9:28–36) according to one of the participants in that glorious event, was a fore-view of the second coming. 'We were not following cunningly devised stories', says Peter, 'when we made known to you the power and parousia of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eye-witnesses of his majesty . . . when we were with him on the holy mountain' (2 Pet Luke 1:16–18). The term parousia when used in connection with our Lord in the New Testament refers without exception to his second coming.

With this we can already see that Stage 5 is in fact going to function as a climax to the first half of the Gospel. There can be no greater climax to anything than the second coming of the Lord; and Stage 5 not only presents the first explicit statement in the Gospel that there is going to be a second coming, but it gives us a magnificent fore-­view of that coming glory. ^{[p 160]}

Table 7 Stage 5 of the Coming Luke 9:1–50

The movements

1. The setting up of the kingdom viewed from our world (Luke 9:1–27)
2. The setting up of the kingdom viewed from the other world (Luke 9:28–50)

1. The setting up of the kingdom viewed from our world (Luke 9:1–27)

Stage 4, we may remember, presented us with many different instances and aspects of salvation. Wonderful as they were, they were all of them instances of the salvation of the individual, and for that very reason Stage 4 could not stand as the climax of the first half of the Gospel. The salvation of the individual is infinitely important; but it is not everything. True, the last incident in Stage 4 proved to be, for those with eyes to see it, a prototype of the resurrection of those who sleep in Jesus at his coming. But there is a whole disordered world to think of; and nothing less than the universal establishment of the kingdom of God in every corner of the earth could satisfy the hunger of our hopes. Stage 5 is going to talk about that kingdom: how Christ had it proclaimed to all Israel (see Luke 9:2) by his apostles; how he spoke about it himself to the crowds that sought him (see Luke 9:11); and how to a favoured few he gave a fore-­view of it (see Luke 9:27). Stage 5 will, as we have said, mention nationwide preaching and explanations and exhortations given to the crowds. But for the most part the lessons of this stage will be given to the close circle of the Twelve—on one occasion to only three of them—and sometimes it will be indicated that they were for their ears only (see Luke 9:21, 36, 43–44). Until Christ was actually crucified, God's strategies for the setting up of his kingdom were part of that hidden wisdom (see Luke 9:45 and 1 Cor 2:7–8), which none of the rulers of this world knew, for if they had known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Movement 1 will relate the processes by which the apostles were prepared to be told explicitly what those strategies must be. ^{[p 162]}

i. The briefing and sending out of the Twelve (Luke 9:1–9)

The contents and proportions of the narratives of the mission of the Twelve are at first sight a little strange. One verse (see Luke 9:1) describes the delegation of the necessary power to the apostles. Four verses (see Luke 9:2–5) describe their briefing. Five verses in all of preparation—and then the whole mission itself is dismissed in one solitary verse: 'And they departed and went through the villages preaching the gospel and healing everywhere' (Luke 9:6). No sample sermons are given; no exorcisms or cases of healing are described; no detailed report is made on how well or otherwise they were received in this or that town or village. Obviously Luke has not told us much of what we would like to hear; but he has presumably told us what he thinks we need to hear, and we ought therefore to stay a little while on the detail of it.

We are told that the first part of the apostles' mission was to preach. The content of their preaching was to be the kingdom of God (see Luke 9:2), and their message is further described as gospel, as good news (see Luke 9:6). What they were to announce doubtless included a call to repentance such as John the Baptist had issued; it may also have included some indication of the ethical standards which would be required of members of the kingdom, such as Christ had spoken of in his sermon on the plain (Luke 6:20–49). But primarily their preaching was to announce the good news that the long expected kingdom of God was really coming. For any Jew who knew the glorious descriptions of the age to come given in the Old Testament, the announcement that the kingdom of God was 'at hand', was self-evidently good news. But the reality and nature of that kingdom were further to be demonstrated by the second part of the apostles' mission: they were given supernatural power and authority to set people free from the domination of evil spirit powers, and to heal them physically. Here was not merely exhortation to do better and to fight one's weaknesses: here were what a later writer (Heb 6:5) was to describe as 'the powers of the age to come' breaking in on the world to heal and to save.

Next (Luke 9:3–4) the apostles were told to expect the nation to defray the expenses of their food, lodging, clothes and travel. The nation's ^{[p 163]} king—though as yet they did not recognize him as such—was 'coming to his own' (John 1:11) and he had a right to call on the nation to maintain his messengers. 'His own', as we know, did not receive him; and when that happened and he was officially declared to be an outlaw, he explicitly countermanded the instructions given here (see Luke 22:35–38). But at this stage the apostles were to expect reception and maintenance. Indeed, they were to understand that refusal to receive them was an exceedingly grave matter: wherever it happened, they were, on leaving, to shake off the dust from their feet as a testimony against those who had rejected them. They were given no powers, such as Elijah had once possessed (see Luke 9:54; 2 Kgs 1:9–14), to execute summary judgment upon their rejectors. On the other hand, they were to make it clear to everyone that the kingdom of God whose coming they heralded, was not simply a set of suggestions for an alternative lifestyle, nor one among several options for the future; it was the kingdom of God: to reject it was to be guilty of rejecting God himself, to stand in danger of eternal perdition.

So the apostles went off on their mission, and while, as we remarked above, we are not given a detailed account of it, we are given a description of its general impact on the nation. It is given, however, in an indirect fashion (see Luke 9:7–9): the impact made on the nation is presented through the eyes of Herod. The impression on the people at large was that they were witnessing a visitation by someone from the world beyond. They speculated that it might be John the Baptist risen from the dead, or Elijah returned from heaven to inaugurate the age to come (see Mal 4:5), or one of the ancient prophets resurrected. That in itself is interesting. They no longer felt simply, as they had earlier done, that a great prophet had arisen among them (see Luke 7:16); they now felt that in the person of Jesus this world had been invaded from the world beyond. Their speculations as to the identity of Jesus were admittedly inadequate; but their basic idea was absolutely right. Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, for instance, were great prophets; but their births were those of ordinary men, the kingdom of God did not come through them; they were not, so to speak, an invasion from the world beyond. Jesus was. ^{[p 164]}

But, as we have said, Luke asks us to look at the impact on the people not directly but through the eyes of Herod. And that is even more interesting, for the apostles had been heralding the approach of the kingdom, that is, the rule of God, and Herod was one of the rulers of this world—a rather small ruler no doubt, but a ruler nonetheless. What is more, when John the Baptist had called on the people to prepare for the coming of the Messiah, Herod had resented John's moral demands and had silenced him, pretty conclusively he had thought, first by imprisonment and then by death. If, then, there was any foundation to what the people were saying, Herod was in grave trouble. Prophets of morality could be awkward, particularly if they were popular with the masses; but they could all in the end be silenced—if death was the end of everything as far as this world is concerned. If, however, death and the grave were not adequate barriers against John's re-entry, or Elijah's, then Herod and his throne were desperately insecure. Doubtless Herod told himself that the masses were victims of gross superstition; but he was left uneasy, not so much now about particular questions of morality—that was a second-order matter—but about the person of Jesus. Who exactly was he? Was he just one more prophet or holy man? Or was he really some kind of invasion from the world beyond? And he sought to see Jesus (see Luke 9:9). If that, then, was the impact of the apostles' preaching and ministry in the days before the resurrection of Christ, it goes without saying that it should be the effect of our preaching also since Pentecost. We are failing in our main task if we give people the impression that the kingdom of God is solely concerned with the regulation of morality in this present age, and do not bring them to see that the crucial question is who Jesus is, and whether he is one day to invade our world again when he comes in his glory and in that of the Father and of the holy angels (see Luke 9:26).

ii. The feeding of the five thousand (Luke 9:10–17)

There follows now the story of the feeding of the five thousand, and to understand the point of it, we must pay attention to its context and to its position in the thought-flow of the whole stage. The ^{[p 165]} miracle was doubtless a lesson to the people; but it was even more so to the apostles. We see this first from the internal proportions of the story, and then also from the fact that the apostles' inadequacy which is exposed and corrected in this story is re-echoed and emphasized in the story of that other miracle (see Luke 9:37–42) which stands opposite this one in Luke's carefully arranged scheme (see the table of contents, Table 7).

It happened, says Luke, when the apostles returned from their mission and reported what they had accomplished (see Luke 9:10). Christ withdrew with them to Bethsaida; but the crowds, finding out where they had gone, followed them. Understandably: the preaching and ministry of the apostles all round the nation would have raised in them expectations and wistful hopes that the ancient prophecies of a coming age of universal peace and sorrowless paradise might after all be true and on the point of fulfilment. And Christ who knew the hunger of the human heart for release from the frustrations and disappointments and pain of life in this present age, did not rebuke the crowd for intruding on his privacy; he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and healed those who had need of healing (see Luke 9:11). That would have fed their hopes still further.

But presently the apostles intervened to point out to Christ (as if he had not realized it) that the hour was getting late, that there were no shops or lodging houses in the remote area where they were, and that he had better send the crowd away to find food and lodging in the nearest villages. Perhaps this unintended impertinence in taking the initiative and telling Christ what to do was the result of a sense of power and authority induced in them by the success of their recent mission. But what happened next shows how inadequate their ideas were even yet about the person and powers of Christ, and the nature of the coming kingdom which they had been heralding round the country. Christ had no intention of sending the people away. He was going to give them a foreshadowing of what the kingdom of God, fully come, would mean. Isaiah in his poetic way had promised (see Isa 25:6–9) that one day God would spread a banquet for all the nations of the world, a feast of rich food, vintage wines, succulent ^{[p 166]} satisfying dishes and the finest of beverages. One element in that divinely satisfying banquet would be the banishing of death for ever and the wiping away of every tear. The time for the spreading of that actual banquet had, of course, not yet come; but Christ was going to give the crowds and the apostles a vivid foretaste of it and a demonstration of the powers that would eventually bring it about. It would involve a miracle of course, and a miracle on a grand scale: nothing less than a miracle of that order could prefigure the great banquet-to-be. But first Christ did an interesting thing: he told his apostles to feed the crowds themselves. Now the apostles had never seen a miracle on this scale before. They had witnessed the healing of individuals; indeed, they had themselves been allowed in their recent mission to use supernatural power to expel demons and to heal. But to feed this tremendous mass of people, numbering some five thousand males let alone women and children, was altogether a different proposition. Even so their response was not all that intelligent. Christ was not in the habit of talking practical nonsense, nor was he mocking their feeble powers. If he told them to feed the crowd, it ought at least to have startled them into thinking that there might be more to the kingdom of God and the powers of Jesus than they had yet realized. Instead of that, the highest their thoughts could rise to was the possibility of going to the nearest merchants (wholesalers, of course) and of buying the necessary quantity of food; otherwise, they remarked, they had only five loaves and two fish.

But the pitiful inadequacy of their resources and the utter impossibility of the situation as long as their ideas were limited to the ordinary natural processes of life in this world provided the contrasting background against which Christ could vividly demonstrate what will be involved in the coming of the kingdom. Looking up into heaven (see Luke 9:16) he brought the powers of heaven irrupting once more into this world and transformed its meagre resources into more than enough to feed the multitudes. The lesson is still needed. We rightly stress the moral laws of the kingdom of God, and strive to see them applied even now to the world's social and economic problems. But we should beware of allowing that present ^{[p 167]} concern to limit our ideas of what the kingdom of God will one day involve. The kingdom of God, fully come, will not mean simply the carrying on of present activities in a more caring, more just, more efficient way. It will be nothing less than the invasion of our world by the powers of the world beyond, releasing nature from her groanings and frustrations, and transforming creation from a system of inevitable decay into a world of freedom, satisfaction and perfect fulfilment, with death destroyed and sorrow gone.

iii. The confession of Jesus as God's Messiah (Luke 9:18–27)

We have reached the climax of the first movement. As we have noticed, Luke does not tell us that between the feeding of the five thousand and the confession of Jesus as God's Messiah a considerable time and a number of events intervened. He does not deny it, of course. But when in Luke's narrative we hear the Lord ask the apostles: 'Who do the crowds say I am?' and the apostles reply 'John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the old prophets risen again', it is impossible for us to forget that we have heard all these suggestions before, a mere ten verses earlier. Why the repetition? Why, having left out so much material, could Luke not have omitted Christ's first question as well, and have proceeded to the second which after all is the heart of the matter: 'Who do you say that I am?'

We can judge only by the effects of the repetition. Whatever else it does, it emphasizes the simple but important fact that when the apostles confessed Jesus as God's Messiah, they did so in full knowledge of all the other suggestions and conjectures that were being made. When they confessed him as Messiah, therefore, it was not because they had been impressed by the supernatural element in his ministry, and could not think of any other, and less extreme, way of accounting for it. The people's suggestions all implied something supernatural about Jesus and his ministry; and Jesus took the trouble to get his apostles to review all these suggestions before they finally and formally expressed their own conviction. Their confession thus stands in deliberate contrast to, and contradiction of, all the other suggestions. It says that those other suggestions, however ^{[p 168]} exalted, are inadequate to express who Jesus is: he is nothing less than the incomparable and unique Messiah of God. With this formal, considered, collective, explicit confession on the part of the apostles we have reached not only a climax in Stage 5 of Luke's Gospel, but also a turning point in the history of the world.

But the apostles had no sooner been brought to realize fully that Jesus was the Messiah, than Jesus proceeded to announce the sequence of events that should lead to the setting up of the kingdom. We cannot know exactly what ideas the apostles themselves may already have had on this matter; but we learn from their later remarks and behaviour that the last thing they would have been expecting was that the Messiah would be rejected by the nation and crucified. They were therefore told at once. To have allowed them to go on for some months under the impression that he was expecting the present interest and enthusiasm of the crowds to grow into a national acceptance of him as the Messiah, only to discover later that the nation would do the very opposite, would have given them grounds for supposing that he had misread the situation and that his hopes and plans for setting up the kingdom were liable to be proved wrong. Now, therefore, when his popularity with the masses was at its height, and the apostles' faith and insight into his true identity had reached their acme, he at once gave them to understand clearly that he knew he was going to be rejected.

Next we should notice exactly by whom he said he was going to be rejected. It is not strictly true to say as we did a moment ago that he predicted that the nation would reject him. It was the religious leaders, he said, that would repudiate his claims and have him crucified. With the people he was very popular as we have just seen, and he remained so according to Luke (see Luke 19:47–48; 20:1, 45; 21:37–38; 22:2–6) right up until the final week. Only at the last minute were the religious leaders able to bring the crowds over to their side to shout for his crucifixion. One might have thought, therefore, that the obvious thing to do at this stage was to get his apostles to mount a nationwide campaign to inform the people that Jesus was the Messiah and then to use massive popular support to ^{[p 169]} overwhelm the opposition of the religious leaders. Our Lord did the very opposite: he forbade his apostles to tell anyone that he was the Messiah (see Luke 9:21).³⁰ One reason for this prohibition was doubtless what many have suggested: the people's ideas of what the Messiah would be and do were so inadequate, not to say perverted, and mixed up with contemporary politics, that to have announced nationwide that Jesus was the Messiah could well have started a highly undesirable political movement and have created masses of enthusiastic but unregenerate followers, quite unprepared to take up their cross daily in order to follow Christ, more likely in fact to take up the sword to fight for what they imagined to be his rights. The explanation which Christ gave for the prohibition, however, was that he must be rejected and killed: not simply would be, but must be. The 'must be' was doubtless dictated by the divine strategy for the setting up of the kingdom. It meant that any attempt at avoiding or opposing this rejection and death would be not only useless, but contrary to the divine will. In announcing the necessity, however, Christ did not stay to explain the reasons behind it; he simply stated it and moved on to the remaining steps in the process of setting up the kingdom. His death would be followed by his resurrection. That would certainly vindicate his claim; but he indicated (see Luke 9:23–26) that his resurrection would not forthwith put an end to all opposition and there and then establish the kingdom of God. Far from it. Anyone who was thinking of following him was warned that it would mean, even after the resurrection, denying himself and taking up his cross daily, bearing the same hostility from the world that Christ bore, and sharing the shame and reproach of being a follower of a Christ who had been crucified. Indeed a would-be disciple, far from reigning with a triumphant ^{[p 170]} Christ over a subdued world (see 1 Cor 4:18), would have to be prepared to lose his very life for Christ's sake.

Nor did Christ hold out any hope that if his disciples were prepared to endure such suffering for a while, the opposition would eventually be won over and the world gradually converted, so that little by little the kingdom of God would be established on earth. The kingdom of God, in the sense in which he was talking of it, would be established only by Christ's personal coming again in his own glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels (see Luke 9:23–26). Then, and only then, would the time come for the reward of those who had suffered for his sake; and then those who had denied him in his absence would discover the eternal loss incurred by that denial.

If the apostles' confession of Jesus as God's Messiah was a high point and climax in their experience of Jesus, this announcement must have seemed a fearful anticlimax and must have filled them with dismay. If the kingdom was not to be established on earth until the second coming, then before them lay a bleak prospect of cross-bearing and suffering without much likelihood that they would ever see the kingdom. They might well be dead before it arrived. How then would they find the faith to go on believing in and hoping for the coming of a kingdom that they were never likely to see?

Christ saw the problem and the need to strengthen the faith of his apostles, and through them the faith of subsequent generations of believers (see 2 Pet 1:12–21), both in the reality of that kingdom and in the certainty of its coming. 'But I tell you' he added, 'there are some among those standing here, who will certainly not experience death before they see the kingdom of God' (Luke 9:27). He was, of course, referring to what three of the disciples were to see, a few days later, the transfiguration on the mountain.^{31 [p 171]}

2. The setting up of the kingdom viewed from the other world (Luke 9:28–50)

It is no accident that the material in the second half of this stage presents a kind of mirror image of the material in the first half. Take, for instance, the paragraph we have just considered (see Luke 9:18–27) and the paragraph which now follows (see Luke 9:28–36). In one sense both of them, as we have already noticed ^{[p . 159]}, deal with exactly the same things: the identity of Jesus compared with Moses and Elijah, his death, resurrection and second coming. The difference is that these two paragraphs look at these things from two completely different points of view: the first from the point of view of men in this world, the second from the viewpoint of persons in the other world. In Luke 9:18–27 the identity of Jesus is something which men are gradually brought to realize fully by experience; in Luke 9:28–36 it is something which has always been known. In Luke 9:18–27 the death of Christ is something which the apostles are told will take place as the result of his rejection by the religious leaders at Jerusalem. It sounds like (at least temporary) defeat. In Luke 9:28–36 the death of Christ is something long since planned and now about to be triumphantly fulfilled. Moreover in Luke 9:18–27 the confession of Jesus as God's Messiah and the announcement of his death, resurrection and coming in glory are the climax to which everything in Movement 1 has led; whereas in Luke 9:28–36 the glory of the kingdom, the long-planned 'exodus' at Jerusalem, the certainty of the eventual establishment of the kingdom on earth at the second coming, these things are the starting point in the light of which the rest of Movement 2 proceeds. ^{[p 172]}

i. The transfiguration of Jesus (Luke 9:28–36)

The first effect of the transfiguration on the apostles was doubtless to convince them beyond any shadow of doubt of the real existence of the other world, the eternal kingdom. Our world is not the only one: there is another. Next they were given to see that that other world is not just future to our world, but concurrent with it, though also before it and beyond it. They further saw that though that world is normally invisible to ours, Christ had contact with both worlds simultaneously; and what is more, though he was still on earth, his person and clothes could and did take on a radiance suited to the glory of the other world (see Luke 9:29). Moreover 'there talked with him two men, Moses and Elijah who appeared in glory' (Luke 9:30–31). That is very interesting, because in our world these two men were separated by time, since they lived in two completely different centuries; in that world they were together. Clearly time and change do not affect that world as they do ours. And yet it would be false to jump to the conclusion that in that world there is no past or future, but only one eternal present, for we are told that Moses and Elijah were talking with Christ about an event that apparently was future to all three of them: Christ's death and resurrection (literally, his 'exodus') which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem (see Luke 9:31). He had not yet died: he knew it, of course; but they also knew it.

Their conversation was about Christ's exodus. In this world Moses had superintended the offering of the Passover sacrifice to save Israel from the wrath of God as the first step towards their liberation from bondage and their exodus from Egypt. In that world, if not before, he would long since have discovered that his Passover sacrifice and exodus had another dimension: they were a prototype and prophecy of the sacrifice of Messiah, a pledge which one day would have to be 'fulfilled in the kingdom of God' (Luke 22:16). And he would further have learned that his own Passover in Egypt was not simply a useful analogy that fortunately happened to lie to hand when God decided that Messiah must die: the sacrifice of Messiah to save Israel and all who will from the wrath of God and ^{[p 173]} the domination of Satan had been decided upon ages before Moses' Passover.

Elijah, too, when in this world, had offered a sacrifice (see 1 Kgs 18). Its purpose had been to win back Israel from her vain idolatries to serve the true and living God. Its method was simple: the God who could show, by fire from heaven, his acceptance of the sacrifice offered on Israel's behalf, was to be acknowledged as the true God. In that world Elijah too would have learned that his sacrifice was also a prototype of the way by which God had already purposed to bring back Israel and all mankind from their false gods: the sacrifice of Messiah offered on behalf of all men and its acceptance demonstrated by the resurrection of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit from heaven.

A few days before, news of the coming death of Christ had appeared to the apostles as a sudden unexpected shock, an obstacle in the way of their hopes put there by the perversity of the religious leaders of their nation. Now on the mount of transfiguration they were beginning to discover that the death of Christ was a sacrifice, foreknown before the foundation of the world, spoken of and foretold by both the law and the prophets, and now about to be as deliberately fulfilled as it had been deliberately planned.

Moreover, what the apostles saw on the mount of transfiguration was not merely a sight of the past and of the near future as it appeared to persons in glory: it was also evidence of the utter certainty of Christ's second coming. This is not something which we are left to deduce from the narrative: Peter himself, as we have earlier observed, tells us (see 2 Pet 1:12–18) that this among other things is what the transfiguration convinced them of. The evidence which he cites is the evidence both of sight and of hearing: they were, he says, eyewitnesses of Christ's majesty, and they heard the voice from the majestic glory (so NIV). Let us notice, therefore, what exactly it was among all that happened on the holy mount, which led Peter on subsequent reflection to be so certain that the crucified Jesus would one day come again in glory. 'We were not following cunningly devised stories' he says 'when we made known to ^{[p 174]} you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eye-witnesses of his majesty, for he received from God the Father honour and glory when there was borne to him from the Majestic Glory a voice to this effect: "This is my Beloved Son in whom I have found delight".' That is, Peter is not referring simply to the fact that on the holy mount Christ's face was transfigured and his clothes transformed. He is observing that at a certain point in the proceedings, Jesus received from God the Father a tremendous accolade of honour and glory. With Peter as our guide we had better look back at Luke's narrative to see exactly at what point this accolade of glory was given him.

The conversation between Christ, Moses and Elijah, as we have noticed, was about Christ's exodus at Jerusalem, about the fact that he must leave the glory of the transfiguration mount, go down into the squalid sinful world below, on to Jerusalem and death: the Son of Man had to go even as it had been ordained (see Luke 22:22). Moses and Elijah therefore were now already beginning to depart (see Luke 9:33) when Peter suggested that it would be good if they did not go, but all stayed where they were on the mountain. He proposed in fact to make three tents, one each for Christ, Moses and Elijah, to facilitate their stay. He like the other two apostles had been asleep, Luke says—obviously he had not followed the conversation too closely—and he did not realize what he was saying. It was nonetheless a most unfortunate suggestion. Not only did it imply putting Moses and Elijah on a level with Christ, but it would have impeded and delayed the very going which had been planned from eternity and for which the time had now come. It was at that point in the proceedings, when having discussed his exodus Moses and Elijah were departing and Christ was turning to go down the mountain and on to his exodus, that the cloud came and Jesus received from the 'Majestic Glory' himself the tremendous accolade of honour and glory: 'This is my Son, my Chosen One; hear him'. Not only had the exodus been planned by the Father: Christ's willingness to fulfil it filled the Father's heart with delight and moved him thus to honour the Son. ^{[p 175]}

As Peter reflected on this glorious event in later life, it convinced him of two things. First, the death of Christ was no tragic accident: it was foreknown, that is foreordained, before the foundation of the world (see 1 Pet 1:20). Secondly, the shame and death of the cross were no obstacle in the way of Christ's setting up of the kingdom. His willingness to suffer was the reason for the Father's delight, the grounds for his bestowing on Jesus the supreme glory. Not only had he already raised him from the dead and given him glory (see 1 Pet 1:21): one day he would do before the whole universe what he had done on the mount of transfiguration. He would glorify and vindicate his Son: Christ would come again (see 2 Pet 1:16) not only in his personal glory but in the glory of the Father himself and of the holy angels (see Luke 9:26). No glory would be too great for the Father to bestow upon the one crucified.

With the coming of the voice, says Luke, Jesus was found alone. The lawgiver and the prophet had gone. For all their eminence they were but men. Their role in history had been preparatory to the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ. Now that he had come, they retired. The actual redemption of the world would depend on Christ and on Christ alone.

ii. The healing of a father's only son (Luke 9:37–43)

The next day they came down from the mountain, says Luke (Luke 9:37); and if our imaginations have caught any glimpse at all of the glory of the transfiguration, we shall not miss the poignancy of these words, particularly when we see the spiritual squalor and distress with which they were immediately surrounded in the world below.

Two things will help us to see the significance of the next incident as Luke wants us to see it. First we may compare his account with those of Matthew and Mark. Like Matthew (see Matt 17:14–20), Luke does not include the four verses of conversation between Christ and the father of the demon-possessed boy on the question of the length of the boy's disorder and of the necessity and possibilities of faith, which Mark records at Mark 9:21–24. Unlike both Matthew (see Matt 17:19–20) and Mark (see Mark 9:28–29), Luke does not record the ^{[p 176]} subsequent conversation between the apostles and Christ on why they could not cast out the demon. On the other hand Luke has some small but telling features which the others do not have. Only Luke records that the boy was his father's only son and that the father based his appeal to Christ in part upon this fact (see Luke 9:38); and only Luke tells us that when the boy was cured Christ 'gave him back to his father' (see Luke 9:42). A whole world of meaning is captured in these small phrases: the unique relationship and the special affection of a father for an only son; the tragic effect of the physical distortions and personality changes induced by demon possession which had in a very real sense taken the boy away from his father and ruined the enjoyment of the relationship; and the delightful outcome of the healing, that the boy was 'given back' to his father and the enjoyment of the relationship restored.

And then only Luke records the impact this made upon the crowds: 'they were all amazed at the majesty of God' (Luke 9:43). The word Luke uses for 'majesty' (Greek: megaleiotes) is interesting. It occurs elsewhere in the New Testament only twice, once at Acts 19:27 and once at 2 Peter Luke 1:16; and on the latter occasion it is used by Peter to describe the majesty of Christ which Peter had seen on the mount of transfiguration. Luke's brief description of the impact made on the crowds, then, gives us to see what Christ did by the miracle he performed: in coming down from the mount of transfiguration where the majesty of God as it appears in the eternal kingdom had been on display, he brought some of that glory with him down into the spiritual squalor and distress of our world and gave men to catch a glimpse of the majesty of God.

There is, moreover, another thing we can do to help ourselves perceive what Luke wants us to see in this story: we can compare and contrast it with the story at Luke 9:10–17 which we have already studied. That also was a story of a miracle involving the crowds, and just as there the disciples were asked to provide the necessary relief and were unable to (see Luke 9:13), so here (see Luke 9:40). But there are differences as well as similarities: at Luke 9:13 it was Christ who told the disciples to feed the crowds and they were unable to, whereas here ^{[p 177]} in Luke 9:40 it was the father who pleaded with the disciples to heal his boy and they could not. Again, the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand was also, we discovered, an enacted parable. It is likely that the miracle of the healing of the father's son will turn out to be an enacted parable as well. But the need which Christ met on the first occasion was hunger; the need which Christ meets in our present story is something altogether different, though no less illustrative of the general human condition.

Now, as we have already noticed, Luke in his version of the story does not record the subsequent discussion between the disciples and Christ on why it was they were unable to cast out the demon. Luke concentrates our attention solely on Christ's rebuke (if that is what it was) of the crowd: 'O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here' (Luke 9:41). What, we ask, was the reason for that somewhat severe remark? Was not the situation distressing enough, particularly to the father, without adding to his distress by this rebuke? And was it not doubly distressing when he had pleaded with Christ's own apostles to cast out the demon and they could not? Why seem to be impatient with the man and the crowd?

Let us recall the situation. Here was a father and his only son. Imagination will tell us the love, affection and hopes which he had for that only child. And now the father was being cruelly robbed of his enjoyment of his son by demon possession which convulsed the boy, twisting his limbs and distorting his features till he foamed at the mouth, and quite possibly perverting his personality as well. And adding to the anguish of it was the inability of even the disciples to do anything about it. Certainly it was distressing to the father; but it was equally, perhaps more, distressing to Christ to see the people of God, reduced to such helpless anguish, as a result ultimately of the nation's departure from, and lack of faith in, God. In his distress Christ described the situation by using a phrase which we first find in Deuteronomy 32:5ff. It is worth quoting the phrase in its context. Moses is rebuking Israel for forsaking God and going after idols. 'They are a perverse and crooked generation. ^{[p 178]} Is this how you repay the Lord, you foolish and unwise people? Is he not your Father who created you, who made you and formed you? (Deut 32:6) . . . But . . . they sacrificed to demons which were not God, gods they had not known (Deut 32:17) . . . and the Lord saw it and rejected them, because he was provoked by his sons and daughters (Deut 32:19) . . . and he said, I will see what their end shall be, for they are a very perverse generation, children who are unfaithful' (Deut 32:20).

This is a very moving passage and its relevance to the situation in our story is at once evident. The boy's twisted limbs, convulsed features and disturbed personality, and the distress of the father at seeing his only son in that condition were an all too eloquent picture of the distress of the Father at seeing his sons and daughters in Israel gone from him, attracted by false religion and demonic powers, and become perverse, crooked and twisted at the deeper level of their spiritual relationships. And all this as a result of loss of faith in, and love of, and obedience to, the Father. For the Son of the Father it was an almost intolerable distress to have to remain among such faithless and perverted sons: 'how long shall I be with you, and bear with you?' he said.

How then should the trouble be put right and Israel's sons and daughters be won back to the Father? If the trouble began with ingratitude and then unbelief, deepening into disobedience, and alien­ation and faithlessness until any old religion, demonic power or superstition was more attractive and fascinating than the Father himself, it is obvious that mere moral sermons and exhortations would be inadequate to bring them back. They would need a new revelation of the Father, a vision of his majesty and glory, to break the fascination of sin and the attractiveness of idolatry, and to reawaken a sense of the incomparable wonder of God and evoke faith and worship and obedience.

And that is what Christ did for the people in our story. The disciples had been unable to do it. They were, of course, the ones who had been left behind when Christ and the three had gone up the mountain, and they had not even seen the glory and the cloud or heard the Father's voice. It took the Son of the Father to do it. ^{[p 179]} From the splendour of the transfiguration where the voice from the 'Majestic Glory' had proclaimed him 'my beloved Son', he had come down the mountain to the spiritual squalor of the plain in order to make known what the Father was really like and to reveal his glory to some of his long-lost sons. And the effect on the people, says Luke, was this: they were all amazed at the majesty of God.³²

Luke's story is, of course, history. It all actually happened. But it takes little imagination to see that it is a parable as well, of how the Son of the Father came down not simply from the mount of transfiguration but from heaven itself by way of the incarnation to tell out the Father (see John 1:18; 14:9), and went at last to Calvary that we poor deluded and perverse men and women, far gone from God, might see 'the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ' (2 Cor 4:6); and seeing it be redeemed and restored to the Father.

iii. Further instruction of the Twelve (Luke 9:43–50)

If that then was why Christ came down from the glory, it follows that until he comes again his apostles and servants must offer themselves to be used for that same purpose. To that end the final paragraph of Stage 5 is devoted to further instruction of the Twelve on how they were to go about their mission in the world. In particular they would need to know what attitude to take towards the power and authority entrusted to them for their work of representing their Lord. History has surely shown the importance of the lesson: the church's attempts to exercise power and authority in the world in the name of Christ have sometimes forfeited the respect of the world as being self-evidently inconsistent with what Christ stood for.

While, then, everyone was still amazed at the tremendous acts of power which Christ was performing (see Luke 9:43), Christ impressed on his apostles that he who was doing these powerful deeds would ^{[p 180]} eventually be 'delivered up into the hands of men'. The apostles did not understand what he said. In the first place they did not apparently understand to what 'being delivered up into the hands of men' referred, and they were afraid to ask (was it because they were subconsciously afraid of what the answer would be?). And then the phrase itself seemed to imply weakness and helplessness; and it probably did not make sense to them that someone who could wield the supernatural power that Christ was wielding, would be delivered into the hands of men as though completely unable to save himself. Luke explains that it was not altogether their fault that they could not understand the lesson: 'it was concealed from them so that they should not perceive it' (Luke 9:45). When Christ was arrested, condemned and crucified they saw all too clearly what it meant, and saw it with shock and consternation. In a world that worshipped power, to be crucified was the extreme of disgrace and shameful weakness, and a crucified Messiah seemed an absurd contradiction in terms. Later they came to see and admire the divine wisdom of the strategy of the cross. They saw that mere power is inadequate to change a man's heart, to reconcile a man to God, to change his rebellion into faith and love and obedience; and inadequate therefore to solve the human problem and bring in the kingdom of God. And then they saw that the cross with all its apparent weakness and shame was able to do what power by itself could not do: 'the weakness of God was stronger than men' (1 Cor 1:25). They saw too that Christ's suffering of the cross was not an unfortunate obstacle on Christ's path to glory: he had come down from glory deliberately in order to suffer the cross. The cross was an expression of the wisdom of the 'Majestic Glory'. And then they woke up to the fact that the message of the cross is the only message of any use in the evangelization of the world, and the principle of the cross the only safe principle to follow in the organization and running of the churches (see 1 Cor 1:18–4:13).

Then there was another lesson which Christ had to teach them (see Luke 9:46–48). When Christ had sent them out on their mission, he had given them power and authority (see Luke 9:1) and had impressed ^{[p 181]} on them that it was very important how people received them (see Luke 9:3–5): to reject them was to stand in danger of the judgment of God. Perhaps it was this, coupled with the different degrees of success achieved by the different apostles in their mission, or perhaps the fact that only three of them had been allowed to accompany Christ on the mount of transfiguration, or perhaps it was all these things and more besides—whatever it was, it led them to think that they themselves were important, and then to argue among themselves which of them was the most important. Christ cured their mistake by pointing out that if he sent a mere child as his representative on some mission or other, it would be equally important whether people received the child or not as it would be whether they received an official apostle or not. The importance did not reside in the child itself or in the apostles themselves, but in the fact that they represented Christ and Christ represented God. In this sense there were no degrees of importance: even the least among them, if he represented Christ and the Father, was great, nor could anyone ever attain to a more magnificent greatness than to represent, never mind in what lowly mission, the 'Majestic Glory'.

Finally there was a third lesson (see Luke 9:49–50). When the apostles had been sent on their mission (see Luke 9:11), they had been given power and authority over all demons. That was wonderful. To their amazement, however, they came across someone else casting out demons in the name of Christ. That, they could see at once, was highly improper. We forbade him, says John.

Perhaps we should not condemn John too hastily. The reason he gives—'because he does not follow with us'—is perhaps ambiguous. Was he including Christ in the 'us', or was he thinking only of the Twelve? If he meant simply the Twelve, then they were surely guilty of narrow-minded self-importance. On this showing, it would not have troubled them that by forbidding this man to cast out demons in the name of Christ they were condemning many people to remain in spiritual bondage. And what is even worse, we have just been told (see Luke 9:40) that on one occasion, at least, nine apostles had been unable to cast out a demon themselves. Not to ^{[p 182]} be able to do it themselves and yet to forbid somebody else to do it, was hardly the best way of furthering the work of the Lord.

On the other hand, John's 'us' may have been intended to include Christ. In that case his concern would have been that the man who was casting out demons in the name of Christ, was attempting to do Christian work, without being willing to take his stand unreservedly with Christ, and to follow along with Christ and his apostles in the path of discipleship to which Christ had called them. The modern equivalent would be people who engage in all kinds of relief work in the name of Christ, but are not prepared to obey and follow all the commandments and disciplines laid down by Christ for his church. It is not a matter of indifference whether professing Christians do, or do not, observe all things that Christ has commanded the apostles (see Matt 28:20). Failure to can sometimes be symptomatic of a very serious spiritual condition (see Matt 7:22–23; 1 John 2:19).

Whichever of the two attitudes John and his fellow apostles were taking, Christ's reply calmed their spirits. Notice he did not say on this occasion, 'He who is not against me is for me', but 'He who is not against you is for you'. Christ was thinking of the practical difficulties that would arise in the path of the apostles as they went about their work for the Lord. It would make life easier for the apostles if all who attempted to use the name of Christ followed all the commandments of Christ. On the other hand, in a world where obedience is rarely perfect, the apostles were to comfort their hearts with the reflection that he that was not positively against them, was for them. Besides, Christ had already pointed out to them that when the Son of Man comes in his glory, all questions of loyalty and disloyalty, obedience and disobedience, will be fully assessed and suitably rewarded (see Luke 9:23–26).

Notes

³⁰This prohibition seems not to have been either absolute or permanently in force even before the resurrection. When the blind man (Luke 18:38) called on him as the Son of David, Jesus did not tell him never to say it again. When at the triumphal entry (Luke 19:38–40) the crowds hailed him as 'the King that comes in the name of the Lord', he refused the Pharisees' demand to have them silenced. And he himself from time to time continued to refer to himself publicly in terms that to the perceptive at least implied that he was the Messiah, e.g. 'a greater than Solomon' (Luke 11:31).

³¹Some find it difficult, if not impossible, to think that this promise referred to the transfiguration, In particular they feel that the expression 'they will certainly not experience death before they see. . .' would be very odd if it referred to seeing something within the next few days. This difficulty is real enough, if one thinks of the kingdom of God only as something that is destined to come on earth in the future. But, as we are about to suggest, the kingdom of God will not begin to exist only when it comes on earth. It already exists in the other world. Indeed, Moses and Elijah were already 'seeing the kingdom of God' as Christ stood talking to his disciples before ascending the mountain. But, of course, before that kingdom comes in open manifestation on earth, the normal way for a human being to see it would be to die, like Moses, or to be translated, like Elijah. To be allowed to see it without and before dying was something extraordinary. At the same time, to see the kingdom as it was already in the eternal world would be to see what that kingdom would be like when eventually it came and was established on earth.

³²Cf. what is said of the present role of the believer in the world in Phil 2:15 which also uses the language of Deut 32:5: 'children of God without fault in a crooked and perverse generation among whom you shine as lights in the world' (or, 'as luminaries in the universe'. The Greek word translated 'shine' is used for the rising and appearing of the heavenly bodies). ^{[p 183]}