14:26 Hate Your Parents?
“Behold my servant”), then it was clear to him that the common expectation of a conquering Messiah was not going to be realized through him. Humility, obedience, suffering and death marked the way of the Father’s will for him. The temptations to which he was exposed in the wilderness were calculated by the adversary to weaken his trustful obedience to God, and included the temptation to fulfill his destiny along the line of common expectation and not in accordance with what he knew to be his Father’s will. We recall in particular the temptation to accept world dominion on the adversary’s terms. “It will all be yours,” said he to Jesus, “if you will fall down and worship me.” Many an ambitious man before then had yielded to that temptation, and many have yielded to it since. But Jesus repudiated the adversary’s offer, and it was in his repudiation of this temptation, according to Matthew 4:10, that he said, “Begone, Satan!” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ) or, as many manuscripts have it,
“Get behind me, Satan!”
And now, from the lips of Peter, Jesus heard what he recognized to be the same temptation again. Peter, in effect, was trying to dissuade him from obeying his Father’s will. Peter had no idea that this was what he was doing; he was moved only by affectionate concern for his Master’s well-being and did not like to hear him utter such ominous words: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected” (Mk 8:31).
But he was, for the moment, playing the part of an adversary, however inadvertently, for as Jesus told him, “You are not on the side of God, but of men” (Mk 8:33 RSV
[RSV Revised Standard Version] ).
In reproducing these words, Matthew inserts a clause not found in Mark: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me, for you are not on the side of God, but of men”
(Mt 16:23 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). It is noteworthy that Matthew
adds this reference to Peter’s being a stumbling block, since it is he alone who, in the preceding paragraph, reports Jesus’ words about the rock. There are two kinds of rock here: there is a kind of rock which provides a stable foundation, and there is the kind of rock which lies in the way and trips people up. Indeed, one and the same rock can sometimes fulfill both functions. There is an oracle in Isaiah 8:13–15 where God himself is a rock which offers safe sanctuary to those who seek refuge on it in times of flood, but which will become “a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall” to those who are swept against it by the swirling waters. Peter had it in him to be either a foundation stone or a stumbling block. Thanks to the intercession which his Master made for him in a critical hour, he strengthened his brethren (Lk 22:32) and became a rock of stability and a focus of unity.
8:34 Taking Up the Cross?
As commonly applied, this is not a very hard saying. As originally intended, it is very hard indeed; no saying could be harder.
As commonly applied, the expression is used of some bodily disability, some unwelcome experience, some uncongenial companion or relative that one is stuck with:
“This is the cross I have to bear,” people say. It can be used in this watered-down way because its literal sense is remote from our experience. In the West capital punishment is now rare or a thing of the past, and it is difficult even to paraphrase the saying in terms of ordinary experience.
There was a time when capital punishment was carried out publicly. The condemned criminal was led through the streets on foot or dragged on a cart to the place of execution, and the crowds who watched this grim procession knew what lay at the end of the road. A person on their way to public execution was compelled to abandon all earthly hopes and ambitions. At that time these words of Jesus might have been rendered thus: “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him be prepared to be led out to public execution, following my example.”
In all three Synoptic Gospels these words follow the account of Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus’ first warning about his impending passion, Peter’s expostulation and the rebuke which it drew forth from Jesus. It is as though he said to them, “You still confess me to be the Messiah? You still wish to follow me? If so, you should realize quite clearly where I am going and understand that by following me you will be going there too.” The Son of Man must suffer; were they prepared to suffer with him? The Son of Man faced the prospect of violent death; were they prepared to face it too? What if that violent death proved to be death on a cross? Were they prepared for that?
The sight of a man being taken to the place of public crucifixion was not unfamiliar in the Roman world of that day. Such a man was commonly made to carry the crossbeam, the patibulum, of his cross as he went to his death. That is the picture which Jesus’ words would conjure up in the minds of his hearers. If they were not prepared for that outcome to their discipleship, let them change their minds while there was time—but let them first weigh the options in the balances of the kingdom of God:
“for whoever wants to save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mk 8:35).
Many, perhaps most, of those who heard these words proved their truth. Not all of them were actually crucified. This, we know, was Peter’s lot; the first of those present to suffer death for Jesus’ sake, James the son of Zebedee, was beheaded (Acts 12:2).
But this is what is meant by “taking up the cross”—facing persecution and death for Jesus’ sake.
When Luke reproduces this saying he amplifies it slightly: “he must deny himself and take up his cross daily” (Lk 9:23). A later disciple of Jesus, one who was not present to hear these words in person, entered fully into their meaning and emphasizes this aspect: “I die every day,” Paul writes (1 Cor 15:31), meaning “I am exposed to the risk of death every day, and that for Jesus’ sake.” He says that he and his fellow apostles
“always carry around in our body the death of Jesus” and explains himself by saying that “we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body” (2 Cor 4:10–11). In another place he refers to
“the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” for whose sake he has suffered the loss of everything, and tells how his consuming ambition is “to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Phil 3:8, 10). As a Roman citizen, Paul was not liable to be crucified, but he knew by experience what it meant to “take up his cross daily”
and follow Jesus.
Jesus’ words about the necessity of denying oneself if one wishes to be his disciple are to be understood in the same sense. Here too is a phrase that has become unconscionably weakened in pious phraseology. Denying oneself is not a matter of giving up something, whether for Lent or for the whole of life; it is a decisive saying no to oneself, to one’s hopes and plans and ambitions, to one’s likes and dislikes, to one’s nearest and dearest, for the sake of Christ. It was so for the first disciples, and it is so for many disciples today. But if this is how it is to be taken—and this is how it was meant to be taken—it is a hard saying indeed.
Yet to some disciples it might be encouraging at the same time—to those actually being compelled to suffer for their Christian faith. The Gospel of Mark was probably written in the first instance for Christians in Rome who were enduring unforeseen and savage persecution under the Emperor Nero in the aftermath of the great fire of a.d.
64. For some of them this persecution involved literal crucifixion. It was reassuring for them to be reminded that their Lord himself had said that this kind of experience was only to be expected by his disciples. If they were suffering for his name’s sake, this meant that they were sharers in his suffering; it meant also that they were truly his disciples and would be acknowledged as such by him in the presence of God.
See also comment on luke 14:26.
9:1 What Is the Coming of the Kingdom?
To say that some who are now present will not die before a certain event takes place is the same thing as saying that the event will take place within “this generation.” What, then, is the event in question—the coming of the kingdom of God “with power”?
The kingdom of God, the new order which Jesus came to inaugurate, had drawn near when he began his public ministry in Galilee; this was the burden of his preaching at that time (Mk 1:14–15). Its presence was manifested by his works of mercy and
power, especially by his healing of the demon-possessed: “If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons,” he said, “then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Lk 11:20 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). But evidently it had not yet come
“with power” as it would come one day in the foreseeable future. At present it was subject to limitations, but the time would come when those limitations would be removed and it would advance unchecked.
What, we may ask, had Jesus in mind when he made this prediction? And can we recognize its fulfillment in any event or development recorded in the New Testament?
We can; but before we try to do so, let us think of a parallel set of sayings. Jesus sometimes spoke of the kingdom of God; he sometimes spoke of the Son of Man. He rarely used the two expressions together, but each implies the other. It is the Son of Man who introduces the kingdom of God, the Son of Man being Jesus himself. There are two sets of sayings about the Son of Man in the Gospels which stand in contrast to one another. In the one set the Son of Man is exposed to humiliation and suffering; in the other he is vindicated and glorified. His vindication is sometimes described pictorially as his being enthroned at the right hand of God. This expression is derived from Psalm 110:1, where the divine invitation is extended to a royal personage: “Sit at my right hand”—the right hand of God being the position of supreme honor and power. Thus, standing before his judges, on the point of receiving the death sentence from them, Jesus assures them that “from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.”
His death marked the end of his humiliation and suffering and, with his resurrection, ushered in his vindication. As a later Christian confession put it, he “was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit” (1 Tim 3:16 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version]
). And this transition from the Son of Man’s humiliation to his vindication corresponds exactly to the transition from the kingdom of God subject to temporary limitations to the kingdom of God now present “with power.” The same phrase “with power” (or “in power”) is used by Paul when he speaks of Jesus as “descended from David according to the flesh” but “designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:4 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ).
With the death and exaltation of Jesus and the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost following, some of those who were witnesses of his mighty works in Galilee and elsewhere saw the power of the kingdom of God manifested on a scale unmatched during his ministry. Within a few weeks, the number of his followers multiplied tenfold; his kingdom was visibly on the march.
This, at any rate, is an interpretation of his saying about the kingdom of God having come with power which makes it intelligible to us. Whether or not this interpretation coincides with his intention when he spoke in this way is a question to which it is best not to give a dogmatic answer.
The three Evangelists who record the saying (in varying terms) go on immediately to describe Jesus’ transfiguration, as though that event bore some relation to the saying (Mt 17:1–8; Mk 9:2–8; Lk 9:28–36). It cannot be said that the transfiguration was the event which Jesus said would come within the lifetime of some of his hearers; one does not normally use such language to refer to something that is to take place in a week’s time. But the three disciples who witnessed the transfiguration had a vision of the Son of Man vindicated and glorified; they saw in graphic anticipation the fulfillment of his words about the powerful advent of the kingdom of God. Matthew, strikingly, in his
report of the words speaks of the Son of Man instead of the kingdom of God: “there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” (Mt 16:28 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). This is an interpretation of the words, but a true interpretation. And Matthew follows Mark in saying that when the disciples had seen the vision, Jesus forbade them to speak about it to anyone “until the Son of man should have risen from the dead” (Mk 9:9 RSV [RSV
Revised Standard Version] ). His rising from the dead would inaugurate the reality which they had seen in the vision on the mount of transfiguration, and would at the same time herald the coming of the kingdom “with power.”
One final point: the coming of the kingdom of God is essentially the coming of God himself. In the Targum (the Arabic rendering of the Hebrew Bible used in synagogue services) the wording at the end of Isaiah 40:9 is changed from “Behold your God!” to
“The kingdom of your God is revealed.” The documentary evidence for this rendering is much later than the New Testament period, but it reflects rabbinical usage when the God of Israel overruled the course of events so as to bring his people home from exile, it might be said that his sovereign power (his “kingdom”) was manifested, but what the prophet said was more direct: “Behold your God!” In the course of events which led to Israel’s return from exile, God himself was to be seen. So again, when the new deliverance was fully accomplished by the death and triumph of Jesus, the sovereign power of God was manifested—God himself came with power.
See also comment on matthew 10:23; mark 13:30.
9:9 Why the Secret?
See comment on mark 1:34, 44.
9:40 For or Against?
See comment on luke 11:23.
9:43–47 Plucking Out the Eye?
See comment on matthew 5:29.
9:50 Saltless Salt?
One can use salt to season meat or bread, but if the salt that one was going to use loses its saltiness, what can be used to season it?
But how can salt lose its saltiness? If it is truly salt, of course, it must remain salt and retain its saltiness. But probably in the ordinary experience of Galilean life, salt was rarely found in a pure state; in practice it was mixed with other substances, various forms of earth. So long as the proportion of salt in the mixture was sufficiently high, the mixture would serve the purpose of true salt. But if, through exposure to damp or some other reason, all the salt in the mixture was leached out, what was left was good for nothing. As Luke, in his amplified version of the saying, puts it, “it is fit neither for the land nor for the dunghill” (Lk 14:35 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). It
might have been thought that the dunghill was all that it was fit for, but Jesus may have used a word that meant “manure”: “it is no good for the land, not even as manure.”
Matthew says, “It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men” (Mt 5:13), that is to say, people throw the useless stuff out into the street.
The figure of insipid salt appears in the words of the rabbis, with reference (it seems) to Israel’s role as the salt or purifying agency among the nations of mankind.
Matthew’s version of Jesus’ saying begins with the words “You are the salt of the earth” (Mt 5:13) addressed to his disciples. This implies that the disciples have a particular function to perform on earth, and if they fail to perform it, they might as well not exist, for all the good they will do. In what respect they are said to be salt is not specified, so the nature of their function has to be inferred from the context and from what is known of the effect of salt. They may be intended to have a preserving and purifying effect on their fellows, or to add zest to the life of the community, or to be a force for peace. The idea of an insipid Christian ought to be a contradiction in terms.
One way in which the quality of saltiness can be manifested is in one’s language. “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt,” Paul writes to the Colossians (Col 4:6), where the “salt” seems to be that ready Christian wit or wisdom (specially apt in the answering of questions about the faith) which is far removed from the slanderous and unsavory talk deprecated earlier in the same letter (Col 3:8).
Since the disciples are spoken of as the salt of the earth in the same context of the Sermon on the Mount in which they are also spoken of as the light of the world and a city set on a hill (Mt 5:14), it is evidently their public life that is in view. They must be seen by others as living examples of the power and grace of God, examples which others are encouraged to follow.
Mark adds some other sayings in which salt figures. These “salt” sayings follow the warning that it is better to enter into life maimed than to be consigned with all one’s limbs to the “Gehenna of fire” (Mk 9:43–48). A transition between that warning and the “salt” sayings is provided by the sentence “Everyone will be salted with fire” (Mk 9:49). The fires which burned continuously in the Gehenna or municipal garbage dump south of Jerusalem reduced the risk of disease, which might have arisen from the decomposing organic matter; fire had a purifying effect, as salt also had. The point of Jesus’ words in this “transitional” sentence may be that the fire of persecution will have a purifying or refining effect in the disciples’ lives (see 1 Pet 1:6–7). Some texts of Mark append here a quotation from Leviticus 2:13 (where the reference is more particularly to the cereal offering): “Season all your grain offerings with salt.” This clause is probably not original in this context, but those who were responsible for inserting it (being moved to do so probably by the common theme of salt) may have intended it to mean “Every Christian, by enduring persecution, will be cleansed thereby and so become a more acceptable offering to God.”
Then, after the saying about the salt that has lost its saltiness, Mark concludes this series of sayings with “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
Again, we should understand this injunction better if we knew the situation in which it was originally spoken. “Have salt in yourselves” might mean “Have salt among yourselves” and might refer to the eating of salt together, an expression of fellowship at table and therefore of peaceful relations. If this is so, then “be at peace with one another” is a nonfigurative explanation of “have salt among yourselves.” But we
10:11–12 No Divorce and Remarriage?
This was felt to be a hard saying by the disciples who first heard it; it is no less a hard saying for many of their present-day successors.
Jesus was asked to give a ruling on a point of law which was debated in the Jewish schools. In Deuteronomy 24:1–4 there is a law which says in effect, “When a man divorces his wife because he has found ‘some indecency’ in her, and she is then married to someone else who divorces her in his turn, her former husband may not take her back to be his wife again.” This, forbidding a man who has divorced his wife to marry her again after she has lived with a second husband, does not lay down the procedure for divorce; it assumes this procedure as already in being. Nowhere in the Old Testament law is there an explicit command about the divorce procedure, but in this context it is implied that to divorce a woman a man had to make a written declaration that she was no longer his wife: “he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house” (Deut 24:1). Elsewhere in the Old Testament divorce is disparaged as something unworthy: “ ‘I hate divorce,’ says the Lord God of Israel,” according to the prophet Malachi (Mal 2:16).
But in Deuteronomy 24 it is assumed that a man may divorce his wife, and that he may do so on account of “something indecent” or “something shameful” (NEB [NEB New English Bible] ) that he has found in her. The interpreters of the law around the time of our Lord, who were concerned not only with deciding what it meant but with applying it to contemporary life, paid special attention to this phrase. What, they asked, might be indicated by this indecency or unseemliness which justified a man in divorcing his wife?
There were two main schools of thought: one which interpreted it stringently, another which interpreted it more broadly. The former school, which followed the direction of Shammai, a leading rabbi who lived a generation or so before Jesus, said that a man was authorized to divorce his wife if he married her on the understanding that she was a virgin and then discovered that she was not. There was, in fact, an enactment covering this eventuality in the law of Deuteronomy (Deut 22:13–21), and the consequences could be very serious for the bride if the evidence was interpreted to mean that she had had illicit sexual relations before marriage. This, then, was one school’s understanding of “some indecency.”
The other school, following the lead of Shammai’s contemporary Hillel, held that
“something indecent” might include more or less anything which her husband found offensive. She could cease to “find favor in his eyes” for a variety of reasons—if she served up badly cooked food, for example, or even (one rabbi said) because he found her less beautiful than some other woman. It should be emphasized that the rabbis who gave these literal interpretations were not moved by a desire to make divorce easy; they were concerned to state what they believed to be the meaning of a particular Scripture.
It was against this background that Jesus was invited to say what he thought. The Pharisees who put the question to him were themselves divided over the matter. In Matthew’s account of the incident, they asked him, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife
for any cause?” (Mt 19:3 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). If his answer was yes, they would want to know for what cause or causes, in his judgment, divorce was permissible. He gave them his answer and then, in private, expanded it for the benefit of his disciples who had heard it.
As usual, he bypassed the traditional interpretation of the rabbinical schools and appealed to the Scriptures. “What did Moses command you?” he asked. “Moses,” they replied (referring to Deut 24:1 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ), “allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to put her away.” They rightly said “Moses allowed,” not “Moses commanded”; the enactment to which they referred, as we have seen, took for granted the existing divorce procedure and wove it into a commandment relating to a further contingency. But Jesus told them that it was “because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law.” Then, as with the sabbath law, so with the marriage law, he went back to first principles. “At the beginning of creation,” he said,
“God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate”
(Mk 10:2–9).
Jesus reminds them of the biblical account of the institution of marriage. The marriage law must conform with the purpose for which marriage was instituted by God. It was instituted to create a new unity of two persons, and no provision was made for the dissolving of that unity. Jesus does not idealize marriage. He does not say that every marriage is made in heaven; he says that marriage itself is made in heaven—that is, instituted by God. To the question “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” his answer, in effect, is “No; not for any cause.”
There is a feature of Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees that could easily be overlooked.
The stringent interpretation of the school of Shammai and the “liberal” interpretation of the school of Hillel were both given from the husband’s point of view. In the stringent interpretation it was the bride’s virginity that had to be above suspicion; the bridegroom’s chastity before marriage did not enter into the picture. As for the
“liberal” interpretation, it was liberal in the husband’s interest, in that it permitted him to divorce his wife for a variety of reasons; so far as the wife’s interest was concerned, it was most illiberal, for she had little opportunity of redress if her husband decided to divorce her within the meaning of the law as “liberally” interpreted. What was true of these interpretations was true of the original legislation which they undertook to expound: it was because of the hardness of men’s hearts that divorce was conceded.
The law was unequally balanced to the disadvantage of women, and Jesus’ ruling, with its appeal to the Creator’s intention, had the effect of redressing this unequal balance.
It is not surprising that women regularly recognized in Jesus one who was their friend and champion.
We may observe in passing that, in referring to the creation ordinance, Jesus combined a text from the creation narrative of Genesis 1 with one from the narrative of Genesis 2. In Genesis 1:27, when “God created man in his own image,” the “man” whom he so created was humanity, comprising both sexes: “male and female he created them.” And in Genesis 2:24, after the story of the formation of Eve from Adam’s side, the narrator adds: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” That may be the narrator’s comment on the story, but Jesus quotes it as the word of God. It is by God’s ordinance that the two become one;
men are given no authority to modify that ordinance.
When the disciples asked Jesus to clarify his ruling, he reworded it in the two statements quoted at the head of this section. The second of the two statements refers to a situation not contemplated in the Old Testament law, which made no provision for a wife to divorce her husband and marry another man. It has therefore been thought that this second statement is a corollary added to Jesus’ original ruling when Christianity had made its way into the Gentile world. In a number of Gentile law codes it was possible for a wife to initiate divorce proceedings, as it was not under Jewish law. But at the time when Jesus spoke there was a recent cause ceélébre in his own country, to which he could well have referred.
Less than ten years before, Herodias, a granddaughter of Herod the Great, who had been married to her uncle Herod Philip and lived with him in Rome, fell in love with another uncle, Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, when he paid a visit to Rome. In order to marry Antipas (as Antipas also desired), she divorced her first husband. She did so under Roman law, since she was a Roman citizen (like all members of the Herod family). For a woman to marry her uncle was not a breach of Jewish law, as it was commonly interpreted at that time, but it was certainly a breach of Jewish law for her to marry her husband’s brother. John the Baptist was imprisoned by Herod Antipas for insisting that it was unlawful for him to be married to his brother’s wife. Jesus named no names, but any reference at that time, either in Galilee or in Perea, to a woman divorcing her husband and marrying someone else was bound to make hearers think of Herodias. If the suggestion that she was living in adultery came to her ears, Jesus would incur her mortal resentment as surely as John the Baptist had done.
But it was his words about divorce and remarriage on a man’s part that his disciples found hard to take. Could a man not get rid of his wife for any cause? It seemed not, according to the plain understanding of what Jesus said. No wonder then that in the course of time the hardness of men’s hearts modified his ruling, as earlier it had modified the Creator’s original intention.
In Matthew’s version of this interchange, Jesus’ ruling is amplified by the addition of a few words: “anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery” (Mt 19:9). The same exception appears in another occurrence of his ruling in this Gospel, in the Sermon on the Mount: “Anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery” (Mt 5:32).
The ruling in this latter form appears also in Luke 16:18, but without the exceptive clause; the exceptive clause is found in Matthew’s Gospel only, and found twice over.
What is to be made of the exceptive clause? Is it an addition reflecting the hardness of men’s hearts? Or is it an expansion stating the obvious—that if something is done which by its very nature dissolves the marriage bond, then the bond is dissolved? Is it an attempt to conform Jesus’ ruling to Shammai’s interpretation—that if the bride is found to have had an illicit sexual relation before her marriage, her husband is entitled to put her away? All these suggestions have been ventilated. Most probable is the view that the exceptive clause is designed to adapt the ruling to the circumstances of the Gentile mission. If this is so, the term “marital unfaithfulness” or “unchastity” (RSV
[RSV Revised Standard Version] ) has a technical sense, referring to sexual unions that, while they might be sanctioned by use and wont in some parts of the Gentile
world, were forbidden by the marriage law of Israel. It is a matter of history that the church’s traditional marriage law, with its list of relationships within which marriage might not take place, was based on that of Israel. What was to be done if two people, married within such forbidden degrees, were converted from paganism to Christianity?
In this situation the marriage might be dissolved.
Certainly the Gentile mission introduced problems that were not present in the context of Jesus’ ministry. One of these problems cropped up in Paul’s mission field, and Paul introduced his own “exceptive clause” to take care of it, although in general he took over Jesus’ prohibition of divorce among his followers. Some of Paul’s converts put to him the case of a man or woman, converted from paganism to Christianity, whose wife or husband walked out because of the partner’s conversion and refused to continue the marriage relationship. In such a situation, said Paul, let the non-Christian partner go; do not have recourse to law or any other means to compel him or her to return. The deserted spouse is no longer bound by the marriage tie which has been broken in this way. Otherwise, he said, “To the married I give this command (not I but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife” (1 Cor 7:10–11).
Plainly Paul, a considerable time before Mark’s Gospel was written, knew what Jesus had laid down on the subject of marriage and divorce, and knew it in the same sense as Mark’s account. Like his Master, Paul treated women as persons and not as part of their husbands’ property. But the disciples who first heard Jesus’ ruling on the subject found it revolutionary, and not altogether welcome; it took them some time to reconcile themselves to it.
Is it wise to take Jesus’ rulings on this or other practical issues and give them legislative force? Perhaps not. The trouble is that, if they are given legislative force, exceptive clauses are bound to be added to cover special cases, and arguments will be prolonged about the various situations which are, or are not, included in the terms of those exceptive clauses. It is better, probably, to let his words stand in their uncompromising rigor as the ideal at which his followers ought to aim. Legislation has to make provision for the hardness of men’s hearts, but Jesus showed a more excellent way than the way of legislation and supplies the power to change the human heart and make his ideal a practical possibility.
10:18 Why Do You Call Me Good?
This is not a very hard saying. Schmiedel, however, included it in his list of pillar texts, arguing (quite cogently) that it is most likely to come from Jesus himself, since no one else was likely to put into his mouth words which seemed to cast doubt on his goodness. A would-be disciple (a rich man, as the sequel shows, but that is irrelevant at this point) ran up to Jesus once and said, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Before answering his question, Jesus took him up on his use of the epithet “good.” A word that in its proper sense belonged to God alone should not be used lightly as a mere expression of courtesy, and Jesus suspected that it was simply as a polite form of address that the man used it. He himself did not refuse to describe people as good when he really meant “good.” If it be asked how such language squares with his assertion here that “No one is good but God alone,” the answer is plain: no one is altogether good, as God is, but men and women are good insofar as they reflect
It appears, indeed, that the form in which Mark (followed by Luke) preserves these words of Jesus was felt to present a difficulty at quite an early stage in the formation of the Gospels. In the parallel passage in Matthew 19:16–17 the weight of the textual evidence favors the recasting of the man’s question as “Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?”—to which Jesus replies, “Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). This recasting of the question and answer, however, was not perpetuated. Whereas normally, in the process of transmitting the Gospel text, the tendency is for the wording of the other Evangelists to be conformed to that of Matthew, here the Matthean wording has been conformed to that of Mark and Luke in the majority of later manuscripts, followed by the KJV [KJV King James Version] : “ ‘Good Master, what shall I do, that I may have eternal life?’ … ‘Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.’” If the saying had been felt to be insuperably hard, the Matthean form would have prevailed throughout the Synoptic record of the incident.
10:21 Sell Everything You Have?
The man to whom these words were spoken certainly found them hard. He was the rich man who came to Jesus and asked what he should do to inherit eternal life. Jesus said, “Well, you know the commandments,” and mentioned those which sum up one’s duty to a neighbor. That keeping the commandments was the way to life is stated in the law itself: “Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord” (Lev 18:5). The man answered that he had kept all these from early days—presumably ever since the age of thirteen, when he became bar mitzvah, personally responsible to keep the commandments.
But he plainly expected Jesus to say something more; he did not come to him just to learn that keeping the commandments was a way to life. And the something more that he waited for came quickly: “There is one thing you haven’t done,” Jesus said, “and you can do it now: sell your property, give the poor the money you get for it, and come and join my disciples. You will get rid of the burden of material goods, and you will be laying up treasure in heaven.” But the man, an honest and attractive character evidently, found this counsel too hard to accept. It is sometimes called a counsel of perfection, from the way in which another Evangelist phrases it: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor” (Mt 19:21).
But this does not mean that keeping the commandments is the duty of all, whereas giving all their goods to feed the poor is the privilege of those who would attain a higher level of devotion. Paul reminds us that even giving all our goods to feed the poor is worthless without love in the heart (1 Cor 13:3). Matthew’s wording might be rendered: “If you want to go the whole way in fulfilling the will of God, this is what you must do.”
For those who wish to treat the teaching of Jesus seriously and make it, as far as possible, their rule of life, this is still a hard saying. It is easy to say, “This is how he tested one man’s devotion, but he did not ask all his hearers to give away their property in the same way.” It is true that those who joined his company and went around with him as his disciples appear to have left all to follow him. But what of
those friends by whose generosity they were maintained—those well-to-do women who, as Luke tells us, “were helping to support them out of their own means” (Lk 8:3)? They were not asked to make the sacrifice that this rich man was asked to make; it might be said, of course, that they were doing something of the same kind by supplying Jesus and the Twelve out of their resources. When Jesus invited himself to a meal in the house of the chief tax collector of Jericho, no pressure apparently was put on Zacchaeus to make his spontaneous announcement: “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor” (Lk 19:8 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). It is usually inferred that this was to be his practice from that time on; it is just possible, however, that he meant that this was what he regularly did. Either way, Jesus recognized him as a “son of Abraham” in the true sense, a man of faith. But he did not tell him to get rid of the other half of his goods as well, nor did he suggest that he should quit his tax collecting and join his company, as another tax collector had done in Capernaum at an earlier date. Even so, Jesus’ advice to the rich man is by no means isolated; it is a regular feature of his teaching. The same note is struck in words appearing without a narrative context in Luke 12:33–34: “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” And Matthew includes the same message in his version of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 6:19–21).
This teaching was not given to one special individual; it was intended for Jesus’
followers in general. He urged them to have the right priorities, to seek God’s kingdom and righteousness above all else (Mt 6:33). But it is very difficult to do this, he maintained, if one’s attention is preoccupied by material wealth. Experience shows that some wealthy men and women have promoted the kingdom of God above their worldly concerns—that they have, indeed, used their worldly concerns for the promotion of his kingdom. But experience also shows that their number is very small.
There is something about concentration on material gain that not only encroaches on time and energy that might otherwise be devoted to the interests of the kingdom of God; it makes one less concerned about those interests, less disposed to pay attention to them. Naturally so: Jesus was stating a law of life when he said that where one’s treasure is, there the heart will be also. He would clearly have liked to enroll the rich man among his disciples, and up to a point the rich man was not unwilling to become one of them. But the sticking point came when he was asked to unburden himself of his property.
Fulness to such a burden is
That go on pilgrimage.12 [12 John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Part 2.]
But he decided that he would sooner go on bearing his burden than become a pilgrim.
Jesus’ words to him were not intended for him alone; they remain as a challenge, a challenge not to be evaded, for all who wish to be his disciples.
See also comment on matthew 6:24; mark 10:25; acts 4:32; james 5:1.
10:25 Easier for a Camel?
In all three Synoptic Gospels this saying follows the incident of the rich man who was
anxious to know how to inherit eternal life—and, in the idiom of the Gospels, inheriting eternal life is synonymous with entering the kingdom of God. His record in keeping the commandments was unimpeachable—he assured Jesus that he had kept them all ever since he came to years of discretion, and Jesus said nothing to suggest that his claim was exaggerated. But, to test the strength of his commitment, Jesus bade him sell his property and distribute the proceeds among the poor. “And,” he said, “you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). At that the rich man’s face fell: this sacrifice was more than he was prepared to make. The incident brings out the real nature of the discipleship to which Jesus called people.
Then, to illustrate “how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God” he used this striking figure of speech. His hearers recognized it immediately to be a hard saying. It is not merely difficult, it is impossible for a rich man to get into the kingdom of God, just as it is not merely difficult but impossible for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle—even a needle of the largest size. The listeners were dismayed: “Who then can be saved?” they asked. (“Being saved” in the Gospels is a further synonym for entering the kingdom of God and inheriting eternal life.) The disciples themselves were not affluent. Peter spoke for the others when he said, “We have left everything to follow you” (Mk 10:28). But they had not realized, perhaps, just how stringent the terms of entry into the kingdom were—and are.
Not only those who heard the words when they were first spoken, but many others since have found the saying to be a hard one. Attempts have been made to soften it somewhat. The eye of a needle, we are sometimes assured, is a metaphor; the reference is to a small opening giving independent access or egress through a much larger city gate. Visitors are sometimes shown such a small entrance in one of the city gates of Jerusalem or another Eastern city and are told that this is what Jesus had in mind. If a man approaches the city gate on camelback when it is closed, he can dismount and get through the small entrance on foot, but there is no way for a camel to do so, especially if it is loaded; it must wait for the main gate to be opened to let it through. Even if a small camel, unloaded, tried to get through the small entrance, it would be in danger of sticking halfway. It is ordinarily impossible for a camel to get through such a narrow opening, but not so ludicrously impossible as for anyone to try to get it through the eye of a needle. But this charming explanation is of relatively recent date; there is no evidence that such a subsidiary entrance was called the eye of a needle in biblical times.
Others point out that there is a Greek word ( kamilos) meaning “cable” very similar in appearance and sound to the word ( kameµlos) meaning “camel.” In fact the word meaning “cable” appears in a few late witnesses to the Gospel text. Their reading is reflected in a version of the English New Testament entitled The Book of Books, issued in 1938 to mark the quartercentenary of Henry VIII’s injunction requiring a copy of the English Bible to be placed in every parish church in England: “It is easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
The editors of The Book of Books did not commit themselves to the view that the word meaning “rope” or “cable” stood in the original text; they simply remarked that while the familiar form with “camel” would “doubtless be preferred by Eastern readers,” their own chosen reading “makes a more vivid appeal to the West.” This is doubtful. In any case, the substitution of “cable” or “rope” for “camel” should probably be recognized as “an attempt to soften the rigor of the statement.”13 [13 B. M.
Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (New York: United Bible Societies, 1971), p. 169.] “To contrast the largest beast of burden known in Palestine with the smallest of artificial apertures is quite in the manner of Christ’s proverbial sayings.”14 [14 H. B. Swete, The Gospel According to St. Mark, 3rd ed. (London: MacMillan, 1909), p. 229.] In Jewish rabbinical literature an elephant passing through the eye of a needle is a figure of speech for sheer impossibility.15 [15
Babylonian Talmud, tractate Berakot 55b.]
No doubt Jesus was using the language of hyperbole, as when he spoke of the man with a whole plank sticking out of his eye offering to remove the splinter or speck of sawdust from his neighbor’s eye (Mt 7:3–5; Lk 6:41). But the language of hyperbole was intended to drive the lesson home: it is impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God—humanly impossible, Jesus concedes, for God, with whom nothing is impossible, can even save a rich man. But if so, then the rich man’s heart must be changed, by having its attachment to material riches replaced by attachment to the true riches, “treasure in heaven.”
It is not easy for anyone to enter the kingdom of God—“the gate is narrow and the way is hard” (Mt 7:14 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] )—but it is most difficult of all for the rich. Jesus’ absolute statement in Mark 10:24, “how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!” has been expanded in later witnesses to the text so as to read: “how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God!” This could be another attempt to soften the hardness of his words, making it possible for a reader to comfort himself with the thought “I have riches, indeed, but I do not trust in them: I am all right.” But, according to Jesus’ teaching, it was very difficult for people who had riches not to trust in them. They would show whether they trusted in riches or not by their readiness to part with them. But the inserted words “for those who trust in riches” are not so wide of the mark. What was it about riches that made Jesus regard them as an obstacle to entrance into the kingdom? Simply the fact that those who had them relied on them, like the rich farmer in the parable (Lk 12:16–21), who encouraged himself with the thought of the great wealth which he had stored up for a long time to come, or his counterpart today whose investments are bringing in a comfortable, inflation-proof income.
There is probably no saying of Jesus which is harder in the Western mind today than the saying about the camel and the needle’s eye, none which carries with it such a strong temptation to tone it down.
See also comment on matthew 6:24; mark 10:21; james 5:1.
10:31 The First Will Be Last?
The saying about the first being last and the last first is not peculiar to the teaching of Jesus; it is a piece of general folk wisdom, which finds memorable expression in Aesop’s fable of the hare and the tortoise. But in the Gospels it is applied to the living situation during Jesus’ ministry.
The saying occurs in two contexts in the Gospels. The first context (in Mk 10:31 and the parallel in Mt 19:30) is the sequel to the incident of the rich man who could not bring himself to sell his property and give the proceeds to the poor. Jesus commented on the difficulty experienced by any rich man who tried to get into the kingdom of God, and Peter spoke up: “Well, we at least are not rich; we have given up everything to be your followers.” To this Jesus replied that, even in this age, those who had given
up anything for him would receive more than ample compensation, over and above the persecutions which would inevitably fall to the lot of his followers, while in the age to come they would receive eternal life. Then he added, “But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
What is the point of the saying in this context? It seems to be directed to the disciples, and perhaps the point is that those who have given up most to follow Jesus must not suppose that the chief place in the kingdom of God is thereby guaranteed to them. It is possible to take pride in one’s self-denial and suppose that by it one has established a special claim on God. “No amount of exertion, not even self-denial or asceticism, can make one a disciple. Discipleship is purely a gift of God.”16 [16 Eduard Schweizer, The Good News According to Mark (London: S.P.C.K., 1971), p. 215.] Even those who have made great sacrifices for God are not justified in his sight for that reason; and even Peter and his companions, who gave up all to follow Jesus, may get a surprise on the day of review and reward by seeing others receiving preference over them.
In Luke 13:30 the words (but in the reverse order) “there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last”) are added to Jesus’ affirmation that “people will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God” (in Mt 8:11 this affirmation is attached to the incident of the centurion’s servant). Those who come from the four points of the compass are plainly Gentiles, whereas some of Jesus’ Jewish hearers, who looked forward confidently to a place in the kingdom along with “Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets,” would find themselves shut out. The free offer of the gospel might be extended “to the Jew first” (Rom 1:16 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ), but if those to whom it was first extended paid no heed to it, then the Gentiles, late starters though they were, would receive its blessings first.
In Matthew 20:16 the parable of the laborers in the vineyard is rounded off with these words: “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” In the parable the last-hired workmen received the same wage at the end of the day as those who were hired at dawn. It might be said indeed that in that situation there was neither first nor last: all were treated equally. But the words had a wider fulfillment in Jesus’ ministry. Those who were far ahead in understanding and practice of the law found themselves falling behind those whom they despised in receiving the good things of the kingdom of God.
The son who said “I will” to his father’s command but did nothing about it naturally yielded precedence to the son who, having first said “I will not,” later repented and did it. “Truly, I say to you,” said Jesus to the chief priests and elders in Jerusalem, “the tax collectors and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you” (Mt 21:28–32 RSV
[RSV Revised Standard Version] ). This was a hard saying to those who heard it, who must indeed have regarded it as an insult—as many of their present-day counterparts equally would. But the work of Jesus brings about many reversals, and the day of judgment will be full of surprises.
10:35 Who Asked for the Seats of Honor?
In Mark it clearly states that James and John themselves came to Jesus to ask him for the places of honor in his kingdom. Yet when we turn to Matthew 20:20 we find:
“Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.”
What actually happened? Did the mother come or did the sons come?
The first thing that is clear is that if the mother did come, James and John were very much part of the request. In Matthew 20:22 Jesus responds “to them,” indicating that the sons are there. In fact, from that point on he ignores the mother and speaks only to the two men. In 1 Kings 2:13–24 we have a roughly analogous incident in which Adonijah gets Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, to make a request for him. David is impressed neither by the request nor by the means Adonijah used; he quickly sees that the request came from Adonijah himself. Thus the account in Matthew agrees with Mark that the real issue was with the two men rather than with their mother.
The second thing that is clear is that Mark is harder on the Twelve than Matthew.
Where, for example, Mark will have Jesus asking, “Do you still have no faith?” (Mk 4:40), implying that there is none, Matthew will have “You of little faith” (Mt 14:31), which seems a bit more generous. Matthew is more generous toward the Twelve throughout the Gospel. If Peter is the source of Mark, does this fact indicate that he is harder on himself and his companions than other writers tended to be?
Thus we are left with two possibilities. Either Matthew, trying to be gentler on the two apostles, added the mother to make the question less direct, or else Mark left her out to cut to the heart of the matter. It seems more likely that the latter is the truth, for Mark’s is a far briefer, stripped-down account, and he would have had more than one reason to leave out the mother, who is actually extraneous to the story. It is not that she was trying to push her two sons forward to get herself a better position, but that she was the spokeswoman for her sons, a way of making the request less direct and stark.
Ancient historians did not feel compelled to tell us exactly what actually happened, but rather to give us the right impression from history. They were more interested with the meaning of history than the bare bones of the facts. Thus Mark would have had no problem feeling that he was perfectly accurate in putting the question on the lips of James and John, for they were in fact behind the question, even if they did not actually speak the words. Matthew, wanting to be a bit gentler on the men or perhaps wanting them to appear more polite, notes the role of the mother, but also reveals that Jesus quickly saw through it and turns to the men to give his answer. In either case we get the accurate impression.
The irony of these two version is that in our society we might prefer the way the question is put in Mark to the way it is done in Matthew, since we, unlike the ancient Palestinians, tend to value directness and speaking for oneself. Many ancient cultures, however, valued the use of a respected sponsor or intermediary to make a personal request, feeling that speaking for oneself was too crass and thus impolite. Going through an intermediary allowed the person receiving the request to say no without having to say it directly to you, thus preserving everyone’s honor. This observation reminds us again that we need to read ancient documents like the New Testament through the eyes of the original authors and their culture and not impose our cultural values and norms upon them.
Finally, the story itself reminds us of the cost of discipleship: honor in the kingdom of God will be bought through costly discipleship, not through influence; we cannot even evaluate our own place, for it is the Father who grants us our role, but often with
accompanying suffering that will feel like anything but honor.
10:46 Two Blind Men or One?
See comment on matthew 8:28–34.
10:52 How Much Faith Do We Need?
See comment on mark 5:34.
11:2 How Many Mounts for Jesus?
See comment on luke 19:30.
11:14 Why Was the Fig Tree Cursed?
This incident is related by Mark and, in a more compressed form, by Matthew.
According to Mark, Jesus and his disciples spent the night following his entry into Jerusalem in Bethany. Next morning they returned to Jerusalem. On the way he felt hungry, and “seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs.” Then Jesus cursed the tree: “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” They continued on their way into Jerusalem, where that day he cleansed the temple; in the evening they returned to Bethany. Next morning, as they passed the same place, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him,
“Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!” (Mk 11:20–21).
Was it not unreasonable to curse the tree for being fruitless when, as Mark expressly says, “it was not the season for figs”? The problem is most satisfactorily cleared up in a discussion called “The Barren Fig Tree” published many years ago by W. M. Christie, a Church of Scotland minister in Palestine under the British mandatory regime. He pointed out first the time of year at which the incident is said to have occurred (if, as is probable, Jesus was crucified on April 6th, a.d. 30, the incident occurred during the first days of April). “Now,” wrote Christie, “the facts connected with the fig tree are these. Toward the end of March the leaves begin to appear, and in about a week the foliage coating is complete. Coincident with [this], and sometimes even before, there appears quite a crop of small knobs, not the real figs, but a kind of early forerunner.
They grow to the size of green almonds, in which condition they are eaten by peasants and others when hungry. When they come to their own indefinite maturity they drop off.” These precursors of the true fig are called taqsh in Palestinian Arabic. Their appearance is a harbinger of the fully formed appearance of the true fig some six weeks later. So, as Mark says, the time for figs had not yet come. But if the leaves appear without any taqsh, that is a sign that there will be no figs. Since Jesus found “nothing but leaves”—leaves without any taqsh—he knew that “it was an absolutely hopeless, fruitless fig tree” and said as much.
But if that is the true explanation of his words, why should anyone trouble to record the incident as though it had some special significance? Because it did have some
special significance. As recorded by Mark, it is an acted parable with the same lesson as the spoken parable of the fruitless fig tree in Luke 13:6–9. In that spoken parable a landowner came three years in succession expecting fruit from a fig tree on his property, and when year by year it proved to be fruitless, he told the man in charge of his vineyard to cut it down because it was using up the ground to no good purpose. In both the acted parable and the spoken parable it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the fig tree represents the city of Jerusalem, unresponsive to Jesus as he came to it with the message of God, and thereby incurring destruction. Elsewhere Luke records how Jesus wept over the city’s blindness to its true well-being and foretold its ruin “because you did not know the time of your visitation” (Lk 19:41–44 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). It is because the incident of the cursing of the fig tree was seen to convey the same lesson that Mark, followed by Matthew, recorded it.
11:23 Faith Moves Mountains?
Of these sayings, or varieties of an original saying, emphasizing the limitless possibilities open to faith, Mark’s form (followed in Mt 21:21) has a life setting in the neighborhood of Jerusalem, during Holy Week; Luke’s form may be from the Q
collection, in which case the form in Matthew 17:20 (an amplification of Jesus’ words to the disciples after the healing of the epileptic boy at the foot of the mountain of transfiguration) combines features from Mark and Q.
In any case, Jesus illustrates the power of faith by analogies from the natural world. If faith is present at all, even if it is no bigger than a mustard seed, it can accomplish wonders: think what a large plant springs from something as tiny as a mustard seed.
“We are not afraid when the earth heaves and the mountains are hurled into the sea”—
so Psalm 46:2 (NEB [NEB New English Bible] ) describes a convulsion of nature that leaves men and women of God unshaken because he is their refuge and strength. It may be that Jesus is using such a form of words figuratively to describe the incalculable effects of prevailing faith.
But in Mark’s account there may be some more explicit point in the form of words. In that account the words are addressed to the disciples after the incident of the cursing of the fig tree. There may not seem to be much to connect that incident with a lesson on the power of faith. The connection, however, may be provided by the place where, according to Mark, the words were spoken. They were spoken in the morning, as Jesus and his disciples made their way from Bethany to Jerusalem, crossing the Mount of Olives. So, in Mark’s account, “this mountain” in the saying would be the Mount of Olives.
Now, in current expectation regarding the time of the end, the Mount of Olives played a special part. It would be the scene of a violent earthquake on the day of the Lord.
“On that day,” said one of the prophets (referring to the day when the God of Israel would take final action against the enemies of his people), “his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south” (Zech 14:4). If Jesus had this and related Old Testament prophecies in mind on his way across the Mount of Olives, his meaning might have been, “If you have sufficient faith in God, the day of the Lord will come sooner than you think.”17 [17
Eduard Schweizer, The Good News According to Mark (London: S.P.C.K., 1971), p. 215.]
See also comment on mark 5:34.
11:33 Neither Will I Tell You?
See comment on luke 20:8.
12:17 Render to Caesar?
For many readers of the Gospels this does not seem to be a particularly hard saying.
They pay their taxes to the state and give financial support to the church and various forms of religious and charitable action, and consider that this is very much in line with the intention of Jesus’ words. There are others, however, who find in these words material for debate, arguing that their meaning is not at all clear, or else, if it is clear, that it is quite different from what it is usually taken to be. Our first business must be to consider the setting in which the words were spoken. When we have done that, we may realize that some of those who heard them felt that here was a hard saying indeed.
Mark, followed by Matthew (Mt 22:15–22) and Luke (Lk 20:19–26), tells how a deputation of Pharisees and Herodians came to Jesus while he was teaching in the temple precincts during his last visit to Jerusalem and, expressing their confidence that he would give them a straight answer, without fear or favor, asked him if it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not. By “lawful” they meant “in accordance with the law of God, the basis of Israel’s corporate life.” Mark says that the questioners planned “to entrap him in his talk” (Mk 12:13 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ); Luke spells this out more explicitly: their purpose, he says, was to “take hold of what he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor” (Lk 20:20 RSV
[RSV Revised Standard Version] ). The governor or prefect of Judea was the representative of Caesar, and any discouragement of the payment of taxes to Caesar would incur sharp retribution from him.
It was, indeed, a very delicate question. After Herod the Great, king of the Jews, died in 4 b.c., the Romans divided his kingdom into three parts, giving each to one of his sons. Galilee, where Jesus lived for most of his life, was ruled by Herod Antipas until a.d. 39. Judea, the southern part, with Jerusalem as its capital, was given to Archelaus (compare Mt 2:22). The sons of Herod received taxes from their subjects, as their father Herod had done. The Herods were not popular, but religiously they were Jews, so no religious difficulties stood in the way of paying taxes to them. But Archelaus’s rule in Judea proved to be so oppressive that, after nine years, the Roman emperor removed him to forestall a revolt and reorganized Judea as a Roman province, to be governed by a prefect appointed by himself. From now on the people of Judea were required to pay their taxes to the Roman emperor, Caesar. A census was held in a.d. 6
to determine the amount of tribute the new province was to yield.
The Jews had been subject to Gentile overlords for long periods in their history, but no prophet or religious teacher had ever taught in earlier days that there was anything wrong in paying tribute to those overlords. On the contrary, the prophets taught them that if they fell under Gentile domination, this was by God’s permission, and they should acknowledge the divine will by paying tribute to their foreign rulers. But around the time of the census in a.d. 6 a new teaching was spread abroad, to the effect that God alone was Israel’s king, and therefore it was high treason against him for his
people to recognize any Gentile ruler by paying him tribute. The principal teacher of this new doctrine was Judas the Galilean, who led a revolt against the Romans (see Acts 5:37). The revolt was crushed, but its ideals lived on, and the propriety of paying taxes to Caesar continued to be a subject for theological debate. It would be generally agreed that Jews in the lands of the Dispersion, living on Gentile territory, should pay taxes in accordance with the laws of the areas where they lived. But the land of Israel was God’s land; this was recognized by its inhabitants when they handed over one-tenth of its produce to the maintenance of his temple in Jerusalem. But the taxes that the Roman emperor demanded were also derived from the produce of God’s land. Was it right for God’s people, living on God’s land, to give a proportion of its produce to a pagan ruler? When the question was framed in those terms, the obvious answer for many was no.
What would Jesus say? While he stayed in Galilee the question did not arise; taxes in that region were paid to a Jewish tetrarch. But when he visited Judea, he came to a place where it was a burning question. However he answered it, it would be almost impossible to avoid giving offense. If he said that it was unlawful to pay taxes to Caesar, the Roman governor would get to hear of it and he could be charged with sedition. If he said that it was lawful, he would offend those who maintained the ideals of Judas the Galilean, and many would think him unpatriotic. This would lose him much of his following in Judea.
“Bring me a denarius,” said Jesus; “let me look at it.” The denarius was a Roman silver coin; Roman taxes had to be paid in Roman coinage. When a denarius was forthcoming, Jesus asked, “Whose face is this? Whose name is this?” The answer, of course, was “Caesar’s.” Well, said Jesus, the coin which bears Caesar’s face and name is obviously Caesar’s coin; let Caesar have it back. The verb translated “render” has the sense of giving back to someone that which belongs to him.
Did he imply that the use of Caesar’s coinage was a tacit acknowledgment of Caesar’s sovereignty? Perhaps he did. There were some Jews whose orthodoxy was such that they would not look at, let alone handle, a coin which bore a human face. Why?
Because it was said to infringe the second commandment of the Decalogue, which forbade the making of “any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Ex 20:4 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). Jesus did not necessarily share this attitude—money of any kind was held in little enough regard by him—but there may have been an implication in his words that the Pharisees among his questioners might have appreciated: such coins were unfit for use by people who were so scrupulous about keeping the law of God, and should go back where they came from. Caesar’s coins were best used for paying Caesar’s tribute. If that was what Caesar wanted, let him have it; the claims of God were not transgressed by such use of Caesar’s money. What was really important was to discover what God’s claims were, and see to it that they were met. Once again, he laid primary emphasis on seeking God’s kingdom and righteousness.
Some interpreters have discerned more subtle ambiguities in Jesus’ answer, as though, for example, he included in “the things that are God’s” the produce of God’s land and meant that none of it should go to Caesar, not even when it was converted into Roman coinage. But this kind of interpretation would render the whole business about producing a denarius pointless. Certainly his answer would not satisfy those who believed that for Judeans to pay tribute to Caesar was wrong. If some of the bystanders had been led by the manner of his entry into Jerusalem a few days before to
expect a declaration of independence from him, they must have been disappointed.
And indeed, there seems to have been less enthusiasm for him in Jerusalem at the end of Holy Week than there had been at the beginning. On the other hand, if his questioners hoped that he would compromise himself by his reply, they too were disappointed. He not only avoided the dilemma on the horns of which they wished to impale him, but turned it so as to insist afresh on the central theme of his ministry.
13:30 This Generation Will Not Pass Away?
This has been regarded as a hard saying by those who take it to refer to Christ’s Second Advent, his coming in glory. If Jesus really affirmed that this event would take place within a generation from the time of speaking (which was only a few days before his arrest and execution), then, it is felt, he was mistaken, and this is for many an unacceptable conclusion.
The genuineness of this saying is argued on the ground that no one would have invented an unfulfilled prophecy and put it on Jesus’ lips. If an unfulfilled prophecy is ascribed to him in the Gospel tradition, that can only be (it is argued) because he actually uttered it. In more recent times, however, the utterance has been widely ascribed not to the historical Jesus but to some prophet in the early church speaking in Jesus’ name. Rudolf Bultmann regarded the discourse of Mark 13:5–27 as “a Jewish apocalypse with a Christian editing,” and thought that this utterance would have made a suitable conclusion to such an apocalypse.18 [18 Rudolf Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 125.]
Some students of the New Testament who do not concede that Jesus might have been mistaken are nevertheless convinced that the reference is indeed to his glorious Advent. If “all these things” must denote the events leading up to the Advent and the Advent itself, then some other interpretation, they say, will have to be placed on “this generation.” Other meanings which the Greek noun genea (here translated
“generation”) bears in certain contexts are canvassed. The word is sometimes used in the sense of “race,” so perhaps, it is suggested, the point is that the Jewish race, or even the human race, will not pass away before the Second Advent. Plainly the idea that the human race is meant cannot be entertained; every description of that event implies that human beings will be around to witness it, for otherwise it would have no context to give it any significance. Nor is there much more to be said for the idea that the Jewish race is meant; there is no hint anywhere in the New Testament that the Jewish race will cease to exist before the end of the world. In any case, what point would there be in such a vague prediction? It would be as much as to say, “At some time in the indefinite future all these things will take place.”
“This generation” is a recurring phrase in the Bible, and each time it is used it bears the ordinary sense of the people belonging to one fairly comprehensive age group. One desperate attempt to combine the recognition of this fact with a reference to the Second Advent and yet exonerate Jesus from being mistaken in his forecast is to take
“this generation” to mean not “this generation now alive” but “the generation which will be alive at the time about which I am speaking.” The meaning would then be: “The generation on earth when these things begin to take place will still be on earth when they are all completed; all these things will take place within the span of one generation.”19 [19 Compare G. H. Lang, The Revelation of Jesus Christ (London: Garden City, 1945), p. 387.]
Is this at all probable? I think not. When we are faced with the problem of understanding a hard saying, it is always a safe procedure to ask, “What would it have meant to the people who first heard it?” And there can be but one answer to this question in relation to the present hard saying. Jesus’ hearers could have understood him to mean only that “all these things” would take place within their generation. Not only does generation in the phrase “this generation” always mean the people alive at one particular time; the phrase itself always means “the generation now living.” Jesus spoke of “this generation” in this sense several times, and generally in no flattering terms. In fact, his use of the phrase echoes its use in the Old Testament records of the Israelites’ wilderness wanderings. The generation of Israelites that left Egypt did not survive to enter Canaan; it died out in the wilderness—all the adults, that is to say (with two named exceptions). And why? Because it refused to accept the word of God communicated through Moses. Hence it is called “this evil generation” (Deut 1:35), “a warped and crooked generation” (Deut 32:5).
Similarly the generation to which Jesus ministered is called “a wicked generation” (Lk 11:29), “this adulterous and sinful generation” (Mk 8:38), because of its unbelief and unresponsiveness. “The men of Nineveh,” said Jesus, “will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here” (Lk 11:32). In fact, “this generation” has so capped the unhappy record of its predecessors that all their misdeeds will be visited on it: “Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all” (Lk 11:51). The phrase “this generation” is found too often on Jesus’ lips in this literal sense for us to suppose that it suddenly takes on a different meaning in the saying which we are now examining. Moreover, if the generation of the end time had been intended, “that generation” would have been a more natural way of referring to it than “this generation.”
But what are “all these things” that are due to take place before “this generation”
passes away? Jesus was speaking in response to a question put to him by four of his disciples. They were visiting Jerusalem for the Passover, and the disciples were impressed by the architectural grandeur of the temple, so recently restored and enlarged by Herod. “Look, Teacher,” said one of them. “What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” Jesus replied, “Do you see all these great buildings? Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” This aroused their curiosity, and seizing an opportunity when they were with him on the Mount of Olives looking across to the temple area, four of them asked, “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?” (Mk 13:1–4).
In the disciples’ question, “all these things” are the destruction of the temple and attendant events. It seems reasonable to regard the hard saying as summing up the answer to their question. If so, then “all these things” will have the same meaning in question and answer. The hard saying will then mean that “this generation will not pass away before” the temple is totally destroyed. It is well known that the temple was actually destroyed by the Romans under the crown prince Titus in August of a.d. 70, not more than forty years after Jesus spoke. Forty years is not too long a period to be called a generation; in fact, forty years is the conventional length of a generation in the biblical vocabulary. It was certainly so with the “evil generation” of the wilderness wanderings: “Forty years long was I grieved with this generation,” said God (Ps 95:10
Prayer Book version).
But if that is what the saying means, why should it have been thought to predict the last Advent within that generation? Because, in the discourse which intervenes between Mark 13:4 and Mark 13:30, other subject matter is interwoven with the forecast of the time of trouble leading up to the disaster of a.d. 70. In particular, there is the prediction of “the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory” and sending out his angels to “gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens” (Mk 13:26–27). Some interpreters have taken this to be a highly figurative description of the divine judgment that many Christians, and not only Christians, saw enacted in the Roman siege and destruction of Jerusalem; but it is difficult to agree with them.
Mark probably wrote his Gospel four or five years before a.d. 70. When he wrote, the fall of the temple and the coming of the Son of Man lay alike in the future, and he had no means of knowing whether or not there would be a substantial lapse of time between these two events. Even so, he preserves in the same context another saying of Jesus relating to the time of a future event: “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mk 13:32). What is the day or hour to which this refers? Certainly not the day or hour of the destruction of the temple: what the whole context, and not only the hard saying of Mark 13:30, emphasizes about that event is its nearness and certainty. The event whose timing is known to none but the Father cannot be anything other than the coming of the Son of Man, described in Mark 13:26.
Luke, as he reproduces the substance of the discourse of Mark 13:5–30, lays more emphasis on the fate of Jerusalem, the city as well as the temple: “Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (Lk 21:24).
When “the times of the Gentiles” (the period of Gentile domination of the holy city) will be fulfilled is not indicated. But this saying, though peculiar to Luke in the Gospel record, is not Luke’s invention: it turns up again in the Apocalypse, and in a part of it which is probably earlier than that work as a whole and was subsequently incorporated into it. The outer court of the temple, John is told, “has been given to the Gentiles.
They will trample on the holy city for 42 months” (Rev 11:2). This is a prophetic utterance communicated to John by a voice from heaven, but it has the same origin as the words recorded in Luke 21:24.
Matthew, writing his Gospel probably a short time after the destruction of the temple, could see, as Mark naturally could not, the separation in time between that event and the coming of the Son of Man. For Matthew, the one event had taken place, while the other was still future. He rewords the disciples’ question to Jesus so that it refers to both events distinctly and explicitly. Jesus, as in Mark, foretells how not one stone of the temple will be left standing on another, and the disciples say, “Tell us, (a) when will this happen, and (b) what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
(Mt 24:3). Then, at the end of the following discourse, Jesus answers their twofold question by saying that (a) “this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened” (Mt 24:34), while (b) with regard to his coming and “the end of the age,” he tells them that “no one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mt 24:36). The distinction between the two predictions is clear in Matthew, for whom the earlier of the two predicted events now lay in the past; but it was already implicit, though not so clear, in Mark.
14:22–24 This Is My Body and Blood?
The words of institution, spoken by Jesus at the Last Supper, were not intended by him to be hard sayings; but they may be included among his hard sayings if regard is had to the disputes and divisions to which their interpretation has given rise.
Mark’s version of the words, quoted above, is not the earliest record of them in the New Testament. Paul reproduces them in 1 Corinthians 11:23–25, written in a.d. 55.
He reminds his converts in Corinth that he “delivered” this record to them by word of mouth (presumably when he came to their city to preach the gospel in a.d. 50) and says that he himself “received” it “from the Lord” even earlier (presumably soon after his conversion); he had received it, that is to say, through a (no doubt short) chain of transmission that went back to Jesus himself and derived its authority from him. There are differences in wording between Paul’s version and Mark’s, perhaps reflecting variations in usage among the churches of the first Christian generation, but we are not concerned here with those differences; it is more important to consider the meaning of what the two versions have in common.
The Last Supper was most probably a Passover meal. It may be that Jesus and his disciples kept the Passover (on this occasion, if not on others) a day earlier than the official date of the feast fixed by the temple authorities in Jerusalem. At the Passover meal, which commemorated the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt many centuries before, there was unleavened bread and red wine on the table, as well as food of other kinds. In the explanatory narrative which preceded the meal, the bread was said to be “the bread of affliction which our fathers ate when they left Egypt” (see Deut 16:3). A literal-minded person might say that the bread on the table was not the bread which the exodus generation ate: that bread was no longer available. But to the faith of the eaters it was the same bread: they were encouraged to identify themselves with the exodus generation, for “in each generation,” the prescription ran, “it is a duty to regard oneself as though one had oneself been brought up out of Egypt.”
At the outset of the meal the head of the family, having broken bread, gave thanks for it in time-honored language: “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who bringest forth bread from the earth.” But at the Last Supper Jesus, as head of his
“family,” having given thanks for the bread, added words which gave the bread a new significance: “Take it,” he said to the disciples, “this is my body.” The Pauline version continues, “ … which is for you; do this as my memorial.” The Passover meal was a memorial of the great deliverance at the time of the exodus; now a new memorial was being instituted in view of a new and greater deliverance about to be accomplished.
And if any literal-minded person were to say, “But the bread which he took from the table could not be his body; the disciples could see his living body there before their eyes,” once again the answer would be that it is to the faith of the eaters that the bread is the Lord’s body; it is by faith that, in the eating of the memorial bread, they participate in his life.
At the end of the meal, when the closing blessing or “grace after meat” had been said, a cup of wine was shared by the family. This cup, called the “cup of blessing,” was the third of four cups which stood on the table. When Jesus had said the blessing and given this cup to his companions, without drinking from it himself, he said to them, “This is my covenant blood, which is poured out for many.” (The Pauline version says, “This is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you; do this as my memorial, every time you drink it.”)
When Moses, at the foot of Mount Sinai, read the law of God to the Israelites who had come out of Egypt and they had undertaken to keep it, the blood of sacrificed animals was sprinkled partly on the altar (representing the presence of God) and partly on the people, and Moses spoke of it as “the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words” (Ex 24:8). To the disciples, who had the passover and exodus narratives vividly in their minds at that time, Jesus’ words must have meant that a new covenant was about to be instituted in place of that into which their ancestors were brought in Moses’ day—to be instituted, moreover, by Jesus’
death for his people. If, then, when they take the memorial bread they participate by faith in the life of him who died and rose again, so when they take the cup they declare and appropriate by faith their “interest in the Savior’s blood.” In doing so, they enter by experience into the meaning of his words of institution and know that through him they are members of God’s covenant community.
Matthew (Mt 26:26–29) reproduces Mark’s version of the words, his main amplification of them being the explanatory phrase “for the forgiveness of sins” after
“poured out for many.” In Luke 22:17–20 we find (according to the information in the margin or footnotes) both a longer and a shorter version; the longer version has close affinities with Paul’s.
Luke’s account is specially important because he is the only Evangelist who reports Jesus as saying, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Lk 22:19). In his account these words are added to those spoken over the bread (in Paul’s account they are attached both to the bread and to the cup). From Mark’s account (and Matthew’s) it might not have been gathered that this was anything other than a once-for-all eating and drinking; Luke makes it plain that the eating and drinking were meant to be repeated.
According to all three Synoptic Evangelists Jesus said, while giving his disciples the cup, “I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God”—or words to the same effect (Mk 14:25 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ; see Mt 26:29; Lk 22:18). He would fast until the kingdom of God was established; then the heavenly banquet would begin. But when he rose from the dead, he made himself known to his disciples “in the breaking of the bread” (Lk 24:35
RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ); Peter in the house of Cornelius tells how he and his companions “ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10:41).
This suggests that the kingdom of which he spoke at the Last Supper has now come in some sense (it has “come with power,” in the language of Mk 9:1): it has been inaugurated, even if its consummation lies in the future. Until that consummation his people continue to “do this”—to take the bread and wine—as his memorial, and as they do so, they consciously realize his presence with them.
See also comment on john 6:53.
14:61–62 You Will See the Son of Man?
After his arrest in Gethsemane, Jesus was brought before a court of inquiry, presided over by the high priest. At first, according to Mark’s narrative, an attempt was made to convict him of having spoken against the Jerusalem temple. Not only was violation of the sanctity of the temple, whether in deed or in word, a capital offense; it was the one type of offense for which the Roman government allowed the supreme Jewish court to pass and execute sentence at its own discretion. Two or three years later, when
Stephen was successfully prosecuted before the supreme court on a similar charge, there was no need to refer the case to Pilate before execution could be carried out. On the present occasion, however, Jesus could not be convicted on this charge because the two witnesses for the prosecution gave conflicting evidence.
Then the high priest, apparently on his own initiative, asked Jesus to tell the court if he was the Messiah, the Son of God (using “the Blessed” as a substitute for the divine name). The Messiah was entitled to be described as the Son of God, if he was the person addressed by God in Psalm 2:7 with the words “You are my son,” or the person who in Psalm 89:26 cries to God, “Thou art my Father” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). Jesus was not in the way of spontaneously referring to himself as the Messiah. But to the high priest’s question he answered, “I am.” How Matthew and Luke understood this reply may be seen from their renderings of it: “You have said so”
(Mt 26:64 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ) or “You say that I am” (Lk 22:70
RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). That is to say, if Jesus must give an answer to the high priest’s question, the answer cannot be other than yes, but the choice of words is the high priest’s, not his own. The words that followed, however, were his own choice. It is as though he said, “If ‘Christ’ (that is, ‘Messiah’ or ‘Anointed One’) is the term you insist on using, then I have no option but to say yes, but if I were to choose my own terms, I should say that you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Almighty and coming with the clouds of heaven.” (Here “power” on Jesus’ lips, meaning much the same as we mean when we say “the Almighty” is, like
“the Blessed” on the high priest’s lips, a substitute for the divine name.) What, then, does this saying mean, and why was it declared blasphemous by the high priest? It means, in brief, that while the Son of Man, Jesus himself, stood now before his judges friendless and humiliated, they would one day see him vindicated by God.
He says this in symbolic language, but the source of this symbolic language is biblical.
Mention has been made already of the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven (see comment on Mk 13:30); this language is drawn from Daniel 7:13–14, where “one like a son of man” is seen in a vision coming “with the clouds of heaven” to be presented before God (“the Ancient of Days”) and to receive eternal world dominion from him. The “one like a son of man” is a human figure, displacing the succession of beastlike figures who had been exercising world dominion previously. The one whose claims received such scant courtesy from his judges would yet be acknowledged as sovereign Lord in the hearts of men and women throughout the world. His claims would, moreover, be acknowledged by God: the Son of Man would be seen seated “at the right hand of the Almighty.” This wording is taken from Psalm 110:1, which records a divine oracle addressed certainly to the ruler of David’s line: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” The present prisoner at the bar would be seen to be, by divine appointment, Lord of the universe—and that not in the distant future, but forthwith. “From now on,” in Luke’s version, “the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God” (Lk 22:69). (Luke omits the language about the clouds of heaven.) “In the future,” in Matthew’s version, “you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Mt 26:64). The right hand of God was the place of supreme exaltation; the clouds were the vehicle of the divine glory.
The Servant of the Lord in the Old Testament, once despised and rejected by men, was hailed by God as “raised and lifted up and highly exalted” (Is 52:13); this role is filled in the New Testament by Jesus, obedient to the point of death, even death by
crucifixion, being “highly exalted” by God and endowed with “the name which is above every name,” in order to be confessed by every tongue as Lord (Phil 2:6–11
RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). It is the same reversal of roles that is announced in Jesus’ reply to the high priest.
Why was his reply judged to be blasphemous? Not because he agreed that he was the Messiah; that might be politically dangerous and could be interpreted as seditious by the Roman administration (as indeed it was), but it did not encroach on the prerogatives of God; neither did the claim to be Son of God in that sense. But the language which he went on to use by his own choice did appear to be an invasion of the glory that belongs to God alone. It was there that blasphemy was believed to lie.
The historical sequel may be allowed to rule on the question whether it was blasphemy or an expression of faith in God which was justified in the event.
15:26 What Was the Crime?
See comment on john 19:19.
15:34 Why Have You Forsaken Me?
This is the hardest of all the hard sayings. It is the last articulate utterance of the crucified Jesus reported by Mark and Matthew; soon afterward, they say, with a loud cry (the content of which is not specified) he breathed his last.
P. W. Schmiedel adduced this utterance as one of the few “absolutely credible” texts which might be used as “foundation pillars for a truly scientific life of Jesus,” on the ground that it could not be a product of the worship of Jesus in the church. No one would have invented it; it was an uncompromising datum of tradition which an Evangelist had to either reproduce as it stood or else pass over without mention.
It would be wise not to make the utterance a basis for reconstructing the inner feelings which Jesus experienced on the cross. The question “Why?” was asked, but remained unanswered. There are some theologians and psychologists, nevertheless, who have undertaken to supply the answer which the record does not give. Their example is not to be followed. This at least must be said: if it is a hard saying for the reader of the Gospels, it was hardest of all for our Lord himself. The assurances on which men and women of God in Old Testament times rested in faith were not for him. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all,” said a psalmist (Ps 34:19 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ), but for Jesus no deliverance appeared.
It seems certain that the words are quoted from the beginning of Psalm 22. Arguments to the contrary are not convincing. The words are not quoted from the Hebrew text, but from an Aramaic paraphrase. (For the Aramaic form Eloi, “my God,” in Mark, the Hebrew form Eli appears in Matthew. Any attempt to determine the precise pronunciation would have to reckon with the fact that some bystanders thought that Jesus was calling for Elijah to come and help him.) Psalm 22, while it begins with a cry of utter desolation, is really an expression of faith and thanksgiving; the help from God, so long awaited and even despaired of, comes at last. So it has sometimes been thought that, while Jesus is recorded as uttering only the opening cry of desolation, in
fact he recited the whole psalm (although inaudibly) as an expression of faith.
This cannot be proved, but there is one New Testament writer who seems to have thought so—the author of the letter to the Hebrews. This writer more than once quotes other passages from Psalm 22 apart from the opening cry and ascribes them to Jesus. In particular, he says that Jesus “offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (Heb 5:7–9).
In these words the writer to the Hebrews expounds, in terms of sufferings which Jesus endured, the acknowledgment of Psalm 22:24: God “has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.” But when he says that Jesus’ prayer “to the one who could save him from death” was answered, he does not mean that Jesus was delivered from dying; he means that, having died, he was “brought back from the dead” to live henceforth by
“the power of an indestructible life” (Heb 13:20; 7:16).
The same writer presents Jesus in his death as being a willing and acceptable sacrifice to God. That martyrs in Israel should offer their lives to expiate the sins of others was not unprecedented. Instead of having his heart filled with bitter resentment against those who were treating him so abominably, Jesus in dying offered his life to God as an atonement for their sins, and for the sins of the world. Had he not said on one occasion that “the Son of Man [came] … to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10:45)?
But now he did so the more effectively by entering really into the desolation of that God-forsakenness which is the lot of sinners—by being “made … to be sin for us,” as Paul puts it (2 Cor 5:21). “In His death everything was made His that sin had made ours—everything in sin except its sinfulness.”20 [20 James Denney, The Death of Christ, 6th ed. (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1907), p. 160.]
Jesus “learned obedience from what he suffered,” as the writer to the Hebrews says, in the sense that by his suffering he learned the cost of his wholehearted obedience to his Father. His acceptance of the cross crowned his obedience, and he was never more pleasing to the Father than in this act of total devotion; yet that does not diminish the reality of his experience of being God-forsaken. But this reality has made him the more effective as the deliverer and supporter of his people. He is no visitant from another world, avoiding too much involvement with this world of ours; he has totally involved himself in the human lot. There is no depth of dereliction known to human beings which he has not plumbed; by this means he has been “made perfect”—that is to say, completely qualified to be his people’s sympathizing helper in their most extreme need.
If they feel like crying to God, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” they can reflect that that is what he cried. When they call out of the depths to God, he who called out of the depths on Good Friday knows what it feels like. But there is this difference: he is with them now to strengthen them—no one was there to strengthen him.
See also comment on psalm 22:1; hebrews 2:10; 5:7–9.
16:1–8 What Really Happened at the Resurrection?
See comment on john 20:1–8.
4:1–13 Order of the Temptations?
When we compare the account of the temptations (or better, testings) of Jesus in Luke 4:1–13 with that in Matthew 4:5–10, we quickly notice that their order is different.
Both accounts agree that (1) the testing was initiated by the Spirit (although Matthew makes it clear that this was the purpose of the wilderness time, while Luke does not make it clear that this was the Spirit’s purpose), (2) Jesus fasted during this period (Matthew adds the detail of forty days), (3) Jesus was hungry after his fast, (4) at the end of the fast Satan approached Jesus, (5) the tests involved Jesus’ sense of identity, particularly his identity as Son of God, and (6) the first test was a demand for him on his own to make stones into bread. After this the two accounts diverge. While the two Evangelists agree on the content of the next two tests, they do not agree on the order.
Luke ends with Jesus on the “the highest point of the temple,” while Matthew ends with Jesus on “a very high mountain.” Why are these accounts different, and doesn’t this cast doubt on the accuracy of the Gospels?
To start with we will assume that the two authors are using the same source, a source that had the testings of Jesus in one of the two orders. We say this because there is plenty of evidence that Matthew and Luke had a source in common (although it was probably an oral source) and because these two accounts are so close that a common source seems probable. However, even if they were using separate sources we would still have the same problem, but just pushed back from Gospels we can examine to sources we will probably never see. Thus our assumption of a common source is helpful as well as logical.
Next we notice that none of the Gospel writers claims to be giving a careful chronology. It is true that in Luke 1:3 the author claims to be writing “an orderly account,” yet this does not mean that the order he will set things down in is chronological. It was far more important to the ancient historian that we grasp the meaning of history than that we get the chronology straight. Thus Matthew groups the sayings of Jesus in five major “books” by topic: Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5–7), Mission Charge (Mt 10), Parables of the Kingdom (Mt 13), Church Discourse (Mt 18) and Eschatological Discourse (Mt 24–25). Luke has another way of grouping his material, so his Sermon on the Plain (Lk 6) does not contain everything in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount; instead, some of the material is found in Luke’s section on God and Mammon (Lk 12) or on Prayer (Lk 11). In each case we get topical groupings, which give us an orderly account in that they order the material so we can better understand it. In neither case do we necessarily get the exact setting in which Jesus said all of the material. To do that would likely have made the material harder to understand, for it would have been split over large portions of the Gospel. Exact chronology is a relatively modern fixation; ancient writers were very happy to compromise chronology if by so doing readers got a better grasp on the inner meaning and real significance of the facts.
It is important, then, to try to see what significance the differing orders point to. Each of the Gospel writers is trying to bring out only some aspects of the character and significance of Jesus, so each of them will be different. Let us look at Matthew first.
Matthew begins by noting “forty days and forty nights.” Except for 1 Kings 19:8 and the flood account, every time this phrase is used in the Old Testament it refers to Moses on Sinai. Matthew notes this detail because he is quite aware of the parallel.
Notice also that all of the responses Jesus gives come from Deuteronomy 6–8, where Moses is exhorting the Hebrews after narrating the story of Israel in the wilderness. So in Deuteronomy 8:3 we read, “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” The reference is to the manna, which was given when the people were hungry and did not trust God, but instead demanded food. Jesus trusts God and does not demand food. Deuteronomy 6:13, quoted in this passage, follows Deuteronomy 6:12, “Be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” This verse reminds us of the golden calf at Sinai (the reason for Moses’ second fast of forty days) when Israel got tired of waiting for Moses and instead made the calf, of which they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt” (Ex 32:4). Again, we have a reference to the failure of Israel in the wilderness. Finally, look at the full context of Deuteronomy 6:16, “Do not test the Lord your God as you did at Massah.” Again we have a reference to Israel’s failure in the wilderness.
Matthew is very conscious of the parallel between Jesus and Israel. In Matthew 2:15
he cites Hosea 11:1, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” The Old Testament refers to Israel as this son called out of Egypt. Matthew clearly applies it to Jesus. What, then, is Matthew saying in the testings of Jesus? Israel, God’s son, was tested in the wilderness and ten times turned, refusing to trust God, and put him to the test (Num 14:22). They did not show themselves to be true as the collective son of God. Now Jesus comes. He is declared to be God’s Son (Mt 3:17), but will he be a false son like Israel or a true son? Like Israel he is led into the wilderness in order to be tested (it is Matthew who stresses this purpose of the Spirit’s action). Like Israel there is a forty-day fast (although in Israel’s case only Moses is said to fast). Like Israel he is tested with hunger, with putting God’s promises to the test (as in Massah, which means “testing”), and with false gods. Unlike Israel, Jesus passes the test every time. He is indeed the true Son, the heir of Israel’s promises, able to represent his people. Notice that the test by false gods is the peak of the tests, just as in the Old Testament history the manna and Massah came before the golden calf at Sinai. And it would be false gods that would trip up Israel for centuries until the exile. Jesus conquers all of Israel’s failures.
Luke is not writing to a Jewish audience who would see themselves as heirs to the Old Testament and appreciate the points we made above. He uses the same testings and the same responses by Jesus, but his main interest is not in Old Testament fulfillment.
Luke’s picture is more that of the kingdom of God invading the kingdom of Satan. For example, right after this event we find Jesus announcing the theme of his mission in Luke 4:18–19. We understand about the preaching of good news and the proclaiming
“the year of the Lord’s favor,” and we know about “recovery of sight for the blind,”
but who are the prisoners who are freed or the oppressed who are released? The fact that the Nazareth incident is followed by the driving out of a demon in Luke 4:31–37
gives us one clue. Another comes in Luke 13:10–17 where the woman crippled by “a spirit” is said to have been “bound by Satan” and is now “loosed” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). Throughout the Gospel we get a picture of Jesus entering the kingdom of Satan and releasing those who are “bound.”
What does this have to do with the testing of Jesus? Luke is very directional in his story. It begins with Joseph and Mary traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem (near Jerusalem), whereas Matthew simply mentions that the birth took place in Bethlehem.
Luke has a central section from Luke 9:51–18:34 or perhaps to Luke 19:44 in which Jesus is traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem. Every so often during this narrative there is a notice about where Jesus is on his journey toward Jerusalem, although the section collects material from his whole ministry. Here is the Son of God, starting at the edge of Satan’s kingdom, so to speak, and moving steadily toward the center where the final confrontation, the final drama of salvation history will be played out. (Acts, volume two of the story, will start the gospel in Jerusalem and move outward to Judea and Samaria and then on to Rome.) The testing story is this movement played out in miniature. Satan confronts him in the wilderness, then confronts him again on a high mountain (Jerusalem is up in the mountains) and finally confronts him in Jerusalem itself. Each time Satan loses until finally Satan leaves him “until an opportune time.”
The miniature confrontation is the parable for the larger confrontation of Jesus’
ministry. At each juncture when Jesus meets an aspect of Satan’s “kingdom” Satan loses, until the final confrontation in Jerusalem. There Satan seems to win, but in fact loses in the end. It is the one who trusts the Father in the testings who on the cross says, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” And it is the cross that he had to suffer before he could “enter his glory” (Lk 24:26).
What was the actual order of the testings of Jesus? We cannot be sure. We know which one was first, but do not know the order of the other two. I personally believe that Matthew had less reason to rearrange the testings than did Luke, so suspect that Matthew’s order is the original order, but that is impossible to prove conclusively.
Both the Gospel writers give what they promise, a truthful interpretation of the life of Jesus that brings out the true meaning of the different events. Each of the authors sees a different aspect of this true meaning. Matthew focuses on Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament and thus Jesus as the true Son that Israel failed to be. Luke focuses on Jesus moving toward Jerusalem as the Son of God invading Satan’s kingdom and bringing God’s salvation in history to those whom Satan has bound. Each orders the testings of Jesus and mentions details to bring out their picture. Both pictures are true, but neither is complete in itself. If we lacked either picture we would be poorer. This is why it is important to read each Gospel for itself and to get the distinctive message each author is proclaiming, to see the picture each author is painting. If we try to merge them together to get a homogenized harmony we lose these distinct contributions, moving from books Christians believe God inspired to an interest in mere history. If, instead of imposing our interests on the text, we listen to each author, we will profit as they proclaim to us that aspect of the good news about Jesus that was entrusted to each of them.
5:39 The Old Is Better?
The ancient authorities for the text read variously “The old is good” and “The old is better,” but even if we accept the authority of those which read “The old is good,” it makes no material difference: anyone who said, with reference to wine, “The old is good” meant that it was better than the new wine.
This is not so much a hard saying as a misunderstood saying. It is often treated as though it carried Jesus’ authority and could be applied to a wide variety of situations in
which the old is threatened by the new—an old version of the Bible, an old form of worship, an old method of evangelism, and in short everything that is popularly summed up in the traditional term “the old-time religion.” But Jesus quotes the saying; he does not necessarily endorse it. The saying is preserved by Luke, who applies it to his version of Jesus’ words about new wine and old wineskins. In those words, taken over from Mark 2:22, Jesus compares his message of the kingdom of God to new wine, which cannot be contained in old wineskins that have lost their elasticity. The old wineskins were the rules and forms of traditional religion, which were menaced, as many religious people thought, by Jesus’ revolutionary teaching. If, in the saying appended by Luke, the new wine has the same meaning—Jesus’ message of the kingdom—then the people who say “The old is good” or “The old is better” are expressing their preference for the old, established, familiar ways. New teaching is disturbing; it forces people to think, to revise their ideas and attitudes. Religious people tend to be conservative, to suspect innovations. Job’s friends were like this: the wisdom to which they appealed had the sanction of antiquity, and Job’s arguments tended to upset it. “What do you know that we do not know?” asked Eliphaz the Temanite. “What insights do you have that we do not have? The gray-haired and the aged are on our side, men even older than your father” (Job 15:9–10).
Jesus found that much resistance to accepting his message, on the part not of hostile but of well-intentioned and pious people, arose simply from this attachment to old ways and old ideas. They had stood the test of time; why should they be changed? This was a perfectly natural response, and one which was not totally regrettable: it could be a safeguard against the tendency to fall for anything new just because it was new—to embrace novelty for novelty’s sake. But when God does a new thing or imparts a new revelation, as he did in the ministry of Jesus, then the instinctive preference for the old could be an obstacle to the progress of his cause. Ultimately, the question to ask about any teaching is not “Is it old?” or “Is it new?” but “Is it true?” Old wine has a goodness of its own and new wine has a goodness of its own. Personal preference there may be, but there is no room for the dogmatism which says, “No wine is fit to drink till it is old.”
“The old is good” or “The old is better,” then, far from expressing the mind of Jesus, could well express an attitude that he deplores because it hinders the advance of the kingdom of God.
6:24 Woe to the Rich?
See comment on james 5:1.
6:29 Turn the Other Cheek?
See comment on matthew 5:39.
6:35 Love Your Enemies?
See comment on matthew 5:44.
7:6 Did the Centurion Come to Meet Jesus?
In the healing story of the centurion’s servant in Luke, it is clear that the centurion does not meet Jesus. It is “some elders of the Jews” who first approach Jesus and request that he come to heal the servant (Lk 7:3). Then when Jesus is on his way the centurion sends “friends” to tell Jesus that the centurion does not feel that he is worthy of a personal visit by Jesus. However, when we turn to Matthew 8:5 we read, “When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help.”
Here the centurion comes to Jesus. The accounts do not seem the same. Who really did approach Jesus? Why are the accounts different?
First, let us see what is the same in the two accounts. In both a centurion has a servant who is seriously ill (although the word for “servant” differs between the two Gospels).
In both Jesus is requested to heal the servant. In both Jesus says that he will come and heal the man. And in both the centurion requests that Jesus heal the servant but not come to the house, for he feels unworthy of Jesus’ presence and understands that Jesus’ authority does not require proximity. Jesus ends both accounts by marveling at the centurion’s faith. So we see that the two versions are substantially the same. They make the same point about the faith of a Gentile centurion in comparison with the lack of faith in Israel, God’s own people.
Second, let us see where the two accounts differ. We have noted that the Greek word for “servant” differs (the term in Luke could also be translated “child,” but is probably correctly read “servant”). The details of the disease differ, for in Matthew he is
“paralyzed and in terrible suffering” and in Luke he is “sick and about to die.” In either case the accounts explain why the servant could not be brought to Jesus and why the healing was urgently needed. In fact, the expressions could focus on different aspects of the same situation. Finally, the nature of the mediating differs, for in Matthew the centurion himself comes on the servant’s behalf and in Luke first the elders of the Jews and then friends of the centurion come on behalf of both the centurion and his servant.
Yet there is also one other difference of significance, for Luke does not have an equivalent for Matthew 8:11–12, in which Jesus speaks of many Gentiles coming to the Messianic banquet while many Jews are thrown out.
Now we can see what is going on. Each Gospel devotes about the same amount of space to the story. In the case of Matthew, he leaves out all mention of the intermediaries, who are not significant in the narrative, because he wants to put in the two verses which draw a further specific point from the story. That point is aimed at Jews, the audience of Matthew’s Gospel. In the case of Luke, even if his version of the story had those two verses in it (and we do not know that it did), they are irrelevant to him. His Gospel is not addressed to Jews at all. This gives him more space to describe the role of the intermediaries, whom Matthew left out, possibly in condensing the story. The presence of the elders and then the friends is quite realistic in that in the ancient world you normally sent an intermediary to a person from whom you wished a favor. This could have two purposes.
First, by avoiding the face-to-face contact you did not put the important person on the spot as much (which would not be polite) and you minimized shame for yourself if he turned you down. Second, by sending people more acceptable than yourself, you maximized the chances of receiving a favorable response. So the first set of intermediaries are Jewish elders who talk about this Gentile’s goodness toward Israel.
The centurion certainly knew that Jesus was a Jew and that he focused on ministry to Jews. He may have felt that a man whom some talked about as the Messiah would also be very nationalistic. Had he heard the story of the Syrophoenician woman (which he almost certainly had not), he would have been sure of this. So he sends important Jews to gain Jesus’ favor for a Jew-friendly Gentile and his servant.
Now the second set of intermediaries, the friends, serves another role. It prevents Jesus from dishonoring himself by entering a Gentile’s home (remember the issue that Peter has with Cornelius some years later), and it acknowledges the high honor of Jesus and the lower honor of the centurion (a servant had no honor at all, so the healing is viewed as a favor to the centurion, not to the servant). The friends could be Gentile associates or they might well also have been Jews. Now whether all this was necessary from Jesus’ point of view is quite beside the point. The issue is that the centurion sees Jesus as a very important figure (far more than the Jews did) and treats him with the respect he would normally accord to such a figure. Luke gives us the full drama of the story so that the esteem in which the Gentile centurion holds Jesus (in contrast with the Jews in Nazareth in Lk 4:16–30) becomes clear. Here was a man of faith. In the people with the Scripture to inform them no faith was found, while in a Gentile we find not simply faith, but great faith. He is so impressed by Jesus that, centurion though he was, he humbles himself before him as if Jesus had been a lord like Caesar.
7:28 Who Is Greater Than John the Baptist?
With minor variations, this saying is reproduced by both Matthew and Luke in the same context. Matthew’s wording is slightly fuller and, as usual, he has “kingdom of heaven” where his parallel has “kingdom of God.” (The two expressions are completely synonymous; then as now there were some who used “heaven” as a substitute for the name of God.)
The saying is paradoxical: if John was not surpassed in greatness by any human being, how could anyone be greater than he? The paradox was certainly deliberate: we may wonder if any of Jesus’ hearers grasped the point more readily than we do today.
In both Gospels the saying comes in the sequel to the account of the deputation of disciples that John, who was then imprisoned by Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, sent to Jesus. In his preaching in the lower Jordan valley John had called on his hearers to amend their ways in preparation for the Coming One, who would carry out a judgment symbolized by wind and fire (Lk 3:17; Mt 3:12). Judgment involved the separation of the good from the worthless, the wheat from the chaff. The chaff, blown away by the wind, would be swept up and thrown into the fire.
Alter the baptism of Jesus, John recognized him as the Coming One of whom he spoke, but now he was not so sure. Jesus had begun his own ministry, but from the reports of it which reached John in prison, it bore little resemblance to the ministry of judgment that John had foretold for the Coming One. Hence he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Jesus might have told the messengers to go back and say to John that the answer to his question was “Yes, I am the one who was to come; there is no need to look for anyone else.” But that would not have been very satisfactory. John might have said, “Ah! but he might be mistaken himself.” Instead, Jesus kept the messengers with him for some
time, and they heard and saw what was actually happening in his ministry. Then, when he judged that they had heard and seen enough for his purpose, he sent them back to tell John all about it—how the blind had their sight restored, the lame were walking, the deaf were enabled to hear and so forth, and how the good news was being proclaimed to the poor. “Tell him this too,” he added, “Blessed is the man who does not feel that I have let him down” (Mt 11:2; Lk 7:19–23).
Jesus knew what John would make of his disciples’ report. Jesus was doing the very things that, according to the prophets, would mark the inbreaking of the new age:
“Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy” (Is 35:5–6). Above all, he was fulfilling, and indeed embodying, the prophetic word that said, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor” (Is 61:1). This should convince John that Jesus was indeed the Coming One: John had not been mistaken about him and need not feel that Jesus was letting him down by not doing the kind of thing John had said he would do.
When the messengers had departed, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John in terms of unqualified commendation. John was nobody’s yes-man, no weather-vane; he stood foursquare to every wind that blew and declared the message of God without fear or favor, to peasant and prince. And when Jesus asked them if they went out to the wilderness to see “a man dressed in fine clothes,” they must have laughed, as they remembered John’s rough coat of camel’s hair. No, said Jesus, for people who wear fine clothes and eat more luxurious food than John’s diet of locusts and wild honey you have to go to royal courts—and John was not at the royal court but in the royal jail. John was a prophet, as most people thought; yes, said Jesus, and more than a prophet; he was God’s special messenger sent to prepare his way, foretold in Malachi 3:1; he was, in fact, unsurpassed by any other. “Among those born of women there is no one greater than John.” John spoke of the Coming One as “one more powerful than I” (Lk 3:16), but here is the Coming One, himself born of a woman, paying a remarkable tribute to John. Then why did he add “yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he”?
I think we can ignore the suggestion that “the one who is least in the kingdom of God”
was a reference to Jesus himself. The “least in the kingdom of God” is the most insignificant person who enjoys the blessings of the new age of salvation that Jesus was bringing in. John was like Moses, who viewed the Promised Land from the top of Mount Pisgah but did not enter it; he was the last of the heroes of Hebrews 11 who
“were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.” It is not in moral stature or devotion or service, but in privilege, that those who are least in the kingdom of God are greater than John—greater not for what they do for God (in this John was unsurpassed) but for what God does for them. On another occasion Jesus congratulated his disciples because they lived to see and hear what many prophets and kings had longed in vain to see and hear (Lk 10:23–24). It was not because of any superior merit of theirs that the disciples enjoyed these blessings; it was because they lived at the time when Jesus came and were called by him to share the life and service of the kingdom of God. Even to be his herald and forerunner, as John was, was not such a great privilege as to participate in the ministry of the Coming One, to be heirs of the kingdom which John, as the last of the prophets of old, foresaw and foretold.
When we read Luke 7:47, some of us become confused. We are familiar with the concept of “justification by faith” which was so important to Martin Luther, or if we do not use that terminology, we are aware that salvation is by faith. Then we read a passage in which salvation appears to be attributed to love. What is it that saves, faith or love or both?
First, it is easy to show that even in Luke faith is also connected to the forgiveness of sins. For example, when the paralyzed man is brought to Jesus by his friends, we read,
“When Jesus saw their faith, he said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven’” (Lk 5:20). In other places faith is connected to healing (Lk 7:9; 8:48; 17:19; 18:42). In fact, Luke refers to faith some twelve times in his Gospel. Faith does save and heal in Luke.
Second, it is also clear that love (used ten times in Luke) is a central religious attitude.
The chief commandment, according to Jesus, is “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind”; and
“Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lk 10:27, quoting Deut 6:5 and Lev 19:18). Notice that it is love of God and love of neighbor, not faith in God, that is cited as central in the Old Testament text Jesus is quoting (compare Lk 16:13).
The question then arises, How shall we put these two together? The truth is, when we look closely at the two words, they turn out to be related to one another. For us, faith often means agreeing to some belief or concept. That would be the meaning in the New Testament in most places in which the text reads, “Believe that … ” However, the most common use of “faith” or “believe” (“believe” or “have faith” is the verbal form of “faith”) is to believe (in) a person. So we find “Believe God” or “Have faith in God” or “Believe in Jesus.” When we read this the author is not asking us to have any particular belief about that person, but to trust in that person or entrust ourselves or commit ourselves to that person. Thus “trust” and “commit” are often better translations than “believe” or “have faith.”
Turning to love, for us love usually means an emotion, especially when a person is its object. (Even “I love chocolate” is mostly an emotional expression, despite that fact that the object is not a person.) In the New Testament “love” rarely has any emotional content. It means something more like “seek the good of” or “care for.” Thus for us it seems nonsense to say, “Love your enemies,” for if they are really enemies how can one have positive emotions toward them? Can one command emotions? Yet the New Testament often instructs us to love: “Love the Lord your God,” “Husbands love your wives,” and so on. By this it means that we are to seek the good of or care for or even show devoted service to the other.
Now we can see how the two words are related. If we are committed to a person, we will indeed care for them and submit to their will. Loving God in the biblical sense is the flip side of believing in God. Thus it is not surprising that Paul would say, “For in Christ Jesus … the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Gal 5:6).
Having looked at the two words, we can now turn back to the passage. The woman has come in while Jesus is at dinner, lying on a sofa at the table. She has washed his exposed feet with her tears, dried them with her hair (in loosing her hair in public she
shamed herself), anointed them with perfumed ointment, and kissed them. It is clearly observable by all those in the room that she is loving Jesus, for she is seeking his good and caring for him. In that she is caring for his feet she is also expressing great self-abasement (only slaves cared for the feet of another, unless one were expressing great love) and submission to him.
Simon the Pharisee, who had invited Jesus, is concerned about the idea that the woman may have been ritually impure and that Jesus seems blithely unaware of that possibility.
Jesus responds with a parable of two forgiven debtors and agrees with Simon that the one who is forgiven the greater debt will love the one who forgave the debt more.
Comparing Simon, who had shown little care for Jesus, to the woman, who had shown a lot of care, Jesus notes in this verse that because she has been forgiven much she loves much. The NSRV [NSRV New Revised Standard Verision] catches this when it translates the verse “Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” Here the love is clearly the result of having been forgiven, which is certainly one possible meaning of the passage. Yet even if we accept the NIV [NIV New International Version] translation, in which the woman’s forgiveness is the result of her love, it is clear that normally without faith (that is, trust or commitment) one will not love, for if one is not committed to a person he or she will not express care for them.
Going two verses further we see that this woman is, as we suspected, a woman of faith: “Jesus said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace’” (Lk 7:50).1 [1
The difference between the two translations is in how they understand a Greek conjunction, hoti. In most cases of a construction like this it would be translated “because,” and thus one would get, “Her many sins are forgiven, because she loved much.” This translation also fits well with the generalization “The one who is forgiven much loves much.” Some grammarians argue, however, that this term can also express result. In that case one would translate, “Her many sins are forgiven, as a result she loved much.” The problem is that the narrator does not speak of any earlier contact between Jesus and the woman and Jesus only tells the woman at the end of the incident that her sins are forgiven. The general principle is still there (and applied to Simon, who loves little, apparently because he had experienced no forgiveness, nor, perhaps, thought he needed any). Yet the woman does not totally fit the principle in that she loves before she is pronounced forgiven. Did the woman know the rumor that Jesus received “sinful” women? Does she express trust in and devotion to such a man the only way she knew, perhaps not yet being sure he would receive her? We cannot be sure, yet this appears to be the picture, in which case the more difficult NIV translation fits best. Whatever the case, since faith and love are related and both have Jesus as their object, there is little difference between the two in the end.]
So what leads to forgiveness of sin? Is it faith or is it love? The fact is that one cannot see faith without love. Love is what faith looks like when it is put into action. As a result, one can look at the love and say, “That person is forgiven because they love much,” because if they love much they are also very committed to the one they love, and commitment is another word for faith.
See also comment on mark 5:34.
8:10 Why in Parables?
See comment on mark 4:11–12.
8:26–39 Two Demoniacs or One?
See comment on matthew 8:28–34.
8:32–33 Why No Concern for the Pigs?
See comment on matthew 8:31–32.
8:48 How Much Faith Do We Need?
See comment on mark 5:34.
8:52 Not Dead but Sleeping?
See comment on mark 5:39.
9:3 Were the Twelve to Take a Staff?
See comment on mark 6:8.
9:27 The Coming of the Kingdom?
See comment on luke 9:27.
9:50 For or Against Christ?
See comment on luke 11:23.
9:58 The Son of Man Has No Place to Lay His Head?
This saying comes in the first of a series of interviews (two in Matthew 8:18–22, three in Luke 9:57–62 between Jesus and would-be disciples. It can be called a hard saying only in the sense that it warned the would-be disciple of the hardships that would be involved in following Jesus. For the man—a scribe, or expert interpreter of the law, according to Matthew 8:19—was not volunteering to become a follower of Jesus in the general sense of following his teaching; he proposed to join his company on a permanent footing: “I will follow you wherever you go,” he said. Jesus warned him that while wild animals have places where they can rest by night (the foxes in their dens and the birds in their nests), he himself did not know from day to day as he moved around the country where he would find shelter, or even if he would find shelter for the next night; and his companions must be prepared to share the same uncertain lot. This lack of any place which he could call his own was only one aspect of the humiliation of the Son of Man—a humiliation which many of the disciples found it hard to accept.
The saying has been made harder than it really is by attempts to understand the phrase
“the Son of Man” as something more (or less) than a way of referring to Jesus himself.1 [1 Following the lead of the original Greek text, the translators of the KJV and RSV left the word for “man” lowercase, making its reference somewhat ambiguous. The translators of the NIV, NRSV, NKJV and NLT, however, have uppercased “Man,”
making it a direct reference to Jesus.] One suggestion is that the phrase here simply means “man” in general, and that its application to Jesus is secondary. That is to say, the saying is in origin a proverb meaning that wild animals have their natural resting-places but man is homeless. There is no evidence for the currency of such a proverb, and in any case it would not be true.
Another suggestion was made by T. W. Manson, in line with his view that “the Son of
man” in the teaching of Jesus primarily denoted God’s elect community, the true believing Israel, which Jesus was constituting around himself (and which, in the crucial hour, was embodied in Jesus himself). If “the Son of man” has this corporate sense in the present saying, then the foxes and the birds might be expected to have a comparable sense. He proposed therefore, tentatively, to understand the saying thus:
“everybody is at home in Israel’s land except the true Israel. The birds of the air (the Roman overlords), the foxes (the Edomite interlopers), have made their position secure. The true Israel is disinherited by them: and if you cast your lot with me and mine you join the ranks of the dispossessed, and you must be prepared to serve God under those conditions.”2 [2 T. W. Manson, The Sayings of Jesus, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1935), pp. 72–73.] (The
“Edomite interlopers” were the Herods; Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, is described by Jesus as “that fox” in Lk 13:32.) But it is unlikely that the would-be disciple would have understood those allusions; it is best to take the words about the Son of Man as referring to Jesus himself. “The saying refers to the continuing hardship and loneliness involved in following the Son of Man.”3 [3 D. Hill, The Gospel of Matthew (London, 1972), p. 162.]
9:60 Let the Dead Bury Their Dead?
These words belong to the second in the group of three incidents in which Jesus impresses on potential followers the absolute priority of the claims of the kingdom of God over everything else. Here he calls on a man to come along with him as his disciple. The man is not unwilling, but says, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
A reasonable request, one might have thought. Burial took place very soon after death, so, if his father had just died, he would probably be buried the same day. The man would then be free to follow Jesus. If he was the eldest son, it was his responsibility to see to his father’s burial. It may be, however, that he meant, “Let me stay at home until my father dies; when I have buried him, I shall be free of family obligations, and then I will come and follow you.” This is not the most natural way to take his words, although it makes Jesus’ response less peremptory. But an interpretation that makes Jesus’ demands less peremptory than they seem to be at first blush is probably to be rejected for that very reason. His demands were peremptory.
Who then are “the dead” who are to be left to bury the dead? One suggestion is that Jesus’ Aramaic words have been mistranslated into Greek—that he actually meant
“Leave the dead to the burier of the dead.” That is to say, there are people whose professional work it is to bury the dead; they can be left to look after this business, but there is more important work for you to do. But this again detracts from the rigorous peremptoriness of Jesus’ words. They are best taken to mean “Leave the (spiritually) dead to bury the (physically) dead”—there are people who are quite insensitive to the claims of the kingdom of God, and they can deal with routine matters like the burial of the dead, but those who are alive to its claims must give them the first place. T. W.
Manson thought that Jesus’ reply was a vivid way of saying, “That business must look after itself; you have more important work to do.”2 [2 T. W. Manson, The Sayings of Jesus (1933; reprint, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1979), p. 73. See M. Hengel, The Charismatic Leader and His Followers (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1981), pp. 1–20: in view of the urgent nearness of the kingdom of God there is no time to lose; all ordinary human considerations and ties must give way to this.]
The burial even of dead strangers was regarded as a highly meritorious work of piety in Judaism; how much more the burial of one’s own kith and kin! Attendance to the duty of burying one’s parents was held to be implied in the fifth commandment:
“Honor your father and mother.” It took precedence over the most solemn religious
obligations. But so important in Jesus’ eyes was the business of following him and promoting the kingdom of God that it took precedence even over the burial of the dead.
The added words in Luke 9:60, “but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God,” are absent from the parallel in Matthew 8:22. The proclamation that the kingdom of God had drawn near was part of the charge which Jesus laid on his disciples (Lk 9:2; 10:9).
The direct sense of his injunction to this man is related to the circumstances of his Galilean ministry, but it retained its relevance after his death and resurrection, and a situation may arise in which it proves still to be strikingly relevant.
Job McNeill, a well-known Scottish preacher of a past generation, used to tell how he found this saying directly relevant to him. When his father died in Scotland, toward the end of the nineteenth century, he was in the English Midlands and was advertised to address an evangelistic meeting in a certain city on the very day of his father’s funeral.
People would have understood had he sent a message to say that he was compelled to cancel his engagement. “But I dared not send it,” he said, “for this same Jesus stood by me, and seemed to say, ‘Now, look, I have you. You go and preach the gospel to those people. Whether would you rather bury the dead or raise the dead?’ And I went to preach.”3 [3 A. Gammie, Rev. John McNeill: His Life and Work (London: Pickering & Inglis, 1933), p. 201.]
See also comment on luke 9:62; 14:26.
9:62 No Looking Back?
This is the third response of Jesus to a would-be disciple: Luke has brought the three together into one context. There is no parallel to this response in Matthew’s record, as there is to its two predecessors.
“I will follow you, Lord,” said this man, “but let me first say farewell to those at my home” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). The words “I will follow you, but …
” have served as the text for many a powerful sermon, but in the present instance the
“but” was not unreasonable and could indeed claim a venerable precedent. Over eight hundred years before, the prophet Elijah was divinely commanded to enlist Elisha the son of Shaphat to be his colleague and successor. As Elijah went to do so, he found Elisha plowing with oxen. He said nothing, but threw his cloak over the young man as he passed. The young man knew immediately what the prophet’s gesture meant, ran after him and said, “Let me kiss my father and mother good-by; … and then I will come with you.” “Go back,” Elijah replied. “What have I done to you?” But Elisha would not be put off; he knew that Elijah had called him to go with him but did not wish to put any pressure on him; the response to his gesture must be Elisha’s spontaneous choice. So Elisha went back and not only said goodby to his father and mother, but made a sumptuous farewell feast for all who lived or worked on their family farm; he killed two oxen, cooked their flesh on a fire made with the wood of their yoke, and after he had entertained the people in this way he “set out to follow Elijah and became his attendant” (1 Kings 19:19–21).
Elijah was a very important person, outstandingly engaged in the service of the God of Israel, but he offered no objection to Elisha’s taking time to bid his family and friends farewell in a suitable manner. But the business of the kingdom of God, on which Jesus was engaged, was much more urgent than Elijah’s business and brooked no such delay.
Once again it is evident that, in Jesus’ reckoning, family ties must take second place to the kingdom which he proclaimed.
Jesus’ reply, like the story of Elisha’s call, has a reference to plowing, but this is probably coincidental. In any agricultural society we might expect a proverbial saying about the importance of looking straight ahead when one’s hand has been put to the plow: the plowman who looks back will not drive a straight furrow. Jesus may well have adapted such a saying: the plowman who looks back is unfit for the kingdom of God. Here the plowman who looks back is the would-be disciple whose mind is still partly on the life he left to follow Jesus. The work of the kingdom of God requires singleness of purpose.
Sometimes a reference has been detected here to Lot’s wife, whose backward look as she and her family fled from the destruction of Sodom was her undoing (Gen 19:26).
This reference is unlikely in the present context. On another occasion Jesus did say,
“Remember Lot’s wife” (Lk 17:32), but that was when he was warning his hearers to flee from a future destruction comparable with that which overtook Sodom.
See also comment on luke 9:60; 14:26.
10:18 What Is the Fall of Satan?
When we think of the fall of Satan, we tend to be more influenced by John Milton than by the Bible. In Paradise Lost Milton describes Satan and his angels being ejected from heaven and falling down to hell back in the primeval past, before the creation of the human race.
Him the Almighty Power
Hurl’d headlong flaming from th’ Ethereal Skie
With hideous ruin and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire,
Who durst defie th’ Omnipotent to Arms.
It would be difficult to find biblical authority for this picture, however. The reader of the KJV [KJV King James Version] may think of Isaiah 14:12, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” And in truth the poetic imagery in which Lucifer’s fall is depicted has been borrowed by the traditional concept of the fall of Satan. But Lucifer, son of the morning, is “Day Star, son of Dawn” (RSV [RSV
Revised Standard Version] ). The prophet is proclaiming the downfall of the king of Babylon, who occupied such a high place in the firmament of imperial power that his overthrow can be compared to the morning star being toppled from heaven. In the Old Testament Satan, or rather “the satan” (the adversary), is chief prosecutor in the heavenly court, and when he fills this role he does so in the presence of God and his angels (Job 1:6–2:7; Zech 3:1–5).
So when Jesus speaks of seeing Satan’s fall from heaven he is not thinking of an event
in the remote past. He is thinking of the effect of his ministry at the time. He had sent out seventy of his disciples to spread the announcement that the kingdom of God had drawn near, and now they had come back from their mission in great excitement.
“Why,” they said, “even the demons are subject to us in your name!” To this Jesus replied, “I watched how Satan fell, like lightning, out of the sky” (NEB [NEB New English Bible] ). It is implied that he was watching for this when suddenly, like a flash of lightning, it happened; Satan plummeted—whether to earth or down to the abyss is not said.
Jesus may be describing an actual vision that he experienced during the mission of the seventy—not unlike the vision seen by John of Patmos, when, as he says, war broke out in heaven and “the great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, orSatan, who leads the whole world astray” (Rev 12:9). When Jesus’
messengers found that the demons—malignant forces that held men and women in bondage—were compelled to obey them as they commanded them, in Jesus’ name, to come out of those people in whose lives they had taken up residence, this was a sign that the kingdom of God was conquering the kingdom of evil. Many of the rabbis held that, at the end of the age, God or the Messiah would overthrow Satan. The report of the seventy showed that Satan’s overthrow had already taken place, and Jesus’ vision of his fall from heaven confirmed this. John’s Patmos version of Satan being ejected similarly indicates that his downfall was the direct result of Jesus’ ministry. So too, when Jesus says in John 12:31, “Now the prince of this world will be driven out,” the adverb now refers to his impending passion, which crowned his ministry.
The downfall of Satan may be regarded as the decisive victory in the campaign; the campaign itself goes on. Hence Jesus’ further words to the exultant disciples: “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions, and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you” (Lk 10:19). The “snakes and scorpions”
represent the forces of evil; thanks to the work of Christ, his people can trample them underfoot and gain the victory over them. The imagery may be borrowed from Psalm 91:13, where those who trust in God are promised that they “will tread upon the lion and the cobra.” Paul uses a similar expression when he tells the Christians in Rome that, if they are “wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil,” then the God of peace will soon crush Satan under their feet (Rom 16:19–20). The wording here harks back not so much to Psalm 91 as to the story of man’s first disobedience, where the serpent of Eden is told that its offspring will have its head crushed by the offspring of the woman (Gen 3:15).
Finally, the seventy are directed not to exult in their spiritual achievements (that way lie pride and catastrophe) but to exult rather in what God has done for them. To have one’s name “written in heaven” is to have received God’s gift of eternal life.
See also comment on isaiah 14:12.
10:22 The Father and the Son
See comment on matthew 11:27.
11:4 Lead Us Not into Temptation?
11:23 For or Against Christ?
There is no formal contradiction between this verse, “He who is not with me is against me,” and Mark 9:40, “Whoever is not against us is for us” (or, as Lk 9:50 has it,
“Whoever is not against you is for you”). In a situation where no neutrality is possible, people must be either on one side or on the other, so that those who are not for are against, and those who are not against are for. But there is a difference in emphasis between the two ways of expressing this.
The former saying comes in a context where Jesus is speaking of the conflict between the kingdom of God and the forces of evil. This is a conflict in which no one should be neutral. Since Jesus is the divinely appointed agent for leading the battle against the forces of evil, those who wish to see the triumph of God’s cause must follow him. If they do not, then whatever they may think themselves, they are effectively on the enemy’s side. As for the added words about gathering and scattering, gathering is the work of God, while scattering is the work of Satan. God is the God of peace; Satan is the author of strife. “The kingdom of God is the one constructive unifying redemptive power in a distracted world; and every man has to choose whether he will take sides with it or against it.”
The latter saying is related to the same subject, although it comes in the course of a narrative, as the punch line in what is sometimes called a “pronouncement story.” The story is told, that is to say, for the sake of the pronouncement to which it leads up.
Here, then, we have such a punch line. John, one of the two “sons of thunder” (as Jesus called him and his brother James because of their stormy temperament), tells Jesus that he and his companions saw someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name,
“and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us” (Mk 9:38). In other words, he was not one of the regularly recognized disciples of Jesus. But he was showing clearly which side he was on in the spiritual warfare; moreover, he was acknowledging the authority of Jesus, because it was in his name that he was casting out demons. This was a far cry from the spirit that ascribed Jesus’ demon-expelling power to the aid of Beelzebul. By his words and actions he was showing himself to be on Jesus’ side.
John was no doubt concerned lest his Master’s name might be taken in vain, if it was invoked by a man who had not been authorized by Jesus to speak or act in his name.
But Jesus did not share his well-meant concern. John has always had his successors in the church, who feel unhappy when things are done in Jesus’ name by people whose authority to do them they cannot recognize. But Jesus’ reply remains sufficient to silence this attitude: “No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me” (Mk 9:39).
11:29–30 No Sign?
This saying seems to contradict Mark 8:12 (“no sign will be given to [this generation]”): “no sign” does not seem to mean the same as “no sign except the sign of Jonah.” Materially, however, there is little difference in sense between the two, as we shall see when we consider what the sign of Jonah was. In fact, we may be dealing not with two separate sayings but with two variant forms which the same original saying
has acquired in the course of transmission. The form preserved by Luke was probably derived from the collection of sayings of Jesus which is conventionally labeled Q.
Mark’s form reappears in Matthew 16:4; the Q form is reproduced in Matthew 12:39.
Both forms are amplified in Matthew’s text and assimilated to one another.
According to Mark, the refusal to give a sign was Jesus’ response to some Pharisees who, in the course of debate, asked him to supply “a sign from heaven.” Jesus spoke and acted with evident authority; what was his authority for speaking and acting as he did? His practice on the sabbath day set at defiance the traditional interpretation of the sabbath law that had been built up over the generations; what was his authority for refusing to accept the “tradition of the elders”? Whereas the great prophets of the past had prefaced their proclamation with “Thus says the Lord,” Jesus was content to set over against what “was said to the men of old” his uncompromising “But I say to you.” What was the basis for this claim to personal authority?
How can such authority be vindicated? When Moses approached Pharaoh as the spokesman of the God of Israel and demanded that his people be allowed to leave Egypt, he demonstrated the authority by which he spoke in a succession of signs, such as turning his rod into a serpent and changing Nile water into blood (Ex 7:8–24). No doubt Pharaoh was the sort of person who would be impressed by such signs, but Moses’ enduring right to be recognized as a prophet of the living God rests on a firmer foundation than such signs. When Elijah entered the presence of Ahab to denounce his toleration of Baal-worship in Israel, he confirmed his denunciation with the announcement of three years’ drought (1 Kings 17:1). Baal, the rain-giver, was to be hit in the one place where he could be hurt—in his reputation. This particular sign was thus highly relevant to Elijah’s message. If Moses and Elijah, then, had confirmed their authority as messengers of God by signs such as these, why could not Jesus confirm his authority in a similar way?
First, what sort of sign would have convinced them? External signs might have been necessary to convince a heathen Egyptian or an apostate king of Israel, but why should they be necessary for custodians and teachers of the law of the true God? They should have been able to decide without the aid of signs whether Jesus’ teaching was true or not, whether it was in line or not with the Law and the Prophets.
Second, would the kind of sign they had in mind really have validated the truth of Jesus’ words? Matthew Arnold remarked, in the course of a nineteenth-century controversy, that his written statements were unlikely to carry greater conviction if he demonstrated his ability to turn his pen into a penwiper.4 [4 M. Arnold, Literature and Dogma (New York: Macmillan, 1895), p. 95.] It may be suspected that it was some similarly extraordinary but essentially irrelevant sign that was being asked from Jesus. If, for example, he had thrown himself down in public from the pinnacle of the temple into the Kidron gorge and suffered no harm, that would have done nothing to confirm his teaching about the kingdom of God, even if it would have silenced the demand for a sign.
In the third place, what about the signs he actually performed? Why were they not sufficient to convince his questioners? One Pharisee, indeed, is reported as saying to him, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him” (Jn 3:2). Jesus himself affirmed that if it was by the power of God that he relieved those who were demon-possessed, that was a sign of the arrival of the kingdom of God (Lk 11:20).
But some of those to whom these words were spoken chose to believe that it was not
by the power of God but by the power of the prince of demons that he healed the demon-possessed. If the restoration of bodily and mental health could be dismissed as a work of Satan, no number of healing acts would have established the divine authority by which they were performed.
In his comments on the “pillar passages” for a scientific life of Jesus, P. W. Schmiedel included Mark 8:12 as the first of four such passages that had a special bearing on the miracles of Jesus. The saying “No sign shall be given to this generation” was an acutely authentic one, he maintained, and implied that the miracle stories of the Gospels were secondary constructions. To this it might be said that, while the healing miracles did serve as signs of the kingdom of God to those who had eyes to see, they did not compel belief in those who were prejudiced in the opposite direction. The Pharisees mentioned in this incident may have wanted a sign that would compel belief, but can genuine belief ever be compelled? While the miracles served as signs, they were not performed in order to be signs. They were as much part and parcel of Jesus’ ministry as was his preaching—not, as it has been put, seals affixed to the document to certify its genuineness but an integral element in the very text of the document.5 [5 D. S. Cairns, The Faith That Rebels (London: Student Christian Movement, 1928), p. 25.] No sign would be given that was not already available in the ministry itself; to ask for more was a mark of unbelief.
What, now, of the sign of Jonah? Jonah, it is said, was “a sign to the men of Nineveh.”
How? By his one-sentence message of judgment. That was all the “sign” that the people of Nineveh had; it was sufficient to move them to belief and repentance.
Schmiedel illustrates that there is no real contradiction between “no sign” absolutely and “no sign except the sign of Jonah” by the analogy of an aggressor who invades a neighboring country without provocation. When asked what justification he can give for his action, he replies, “I shall give you no other justification than that which my sword gives”—which is as much as to say “no justification.” As Jonah’s ministry in Nineveh was sign enough, so Jesus’ ministry in Palestine is sign enough. No other sign would be given.
In the Q collection the refusal to give any sign but the sign of Jonah was followed by a comparison between the people to whom Jesus ministered and those to whom Jonah preached. Jesus’ hearers shared the rich heritage of divine worship and revelation which had been enjoyed over the centuries by the people of Israel; Jonah preached to pagans. Yet Jonah’s hearers made a swift and positive response to his message; the reaction on the part of the majority of Jesus’ hearers was quite different. Therefore, he said, “The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here” (Mt 12:41; Lk 11:32). The “something greater” was Jesus’
proclamation of the kingdom of God, which was more important and far-reaching than Jonah and his preaching. Yet Jonah and his preaching were enough to bring the people of Nineveh to repentance; Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom made no such large-scale impact on his generation. On the day of judgment, therefore, the people of Nineveh would compare very favorably with the Galileans to whom Jesus preached; indeed, they would serve as tacit, if not as vocal, witnesses against them. Whether these words of Jesus were spoken on the same occasion as the saying about the sign or on another occasion, their relevance to it is unmistakable.
Matthew, for his part, adds a further analogy between Jonah’s situation and that of Jesus: “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Mt 12:40).
This is commonly supposed to be a later insertion among the Jonah sayings, but T. W.
Manson has pointed out that no one after the resurrection of Jesus, which by common Christian consent took place on “the third day,” would have represented him as being buried for a much longer period.6 [6 T. W. Manson, The Sayings of Jesus (1933; reprint, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1979), pp. 89–90.] In any case, it would be unwise to press “three days and three nights” to mean seventy-two hours, neither more nor less. Jonah’s experience in the Mediterranean was not a sign to the people of Nineveh, any more than Jesus’
resurrection on Easter Day after his entombment on Good Friday was a public spectacle. In Matthew 12:40 we simply have an analogy traced between two servants of God, who were both brought up by God “from the Pit” (Jon 2:6; see Ps 16:10, quoted with reference to Jesus in Acts 2:27; 13:35).
See also comment on matthew 12:40.
11:41 Give What Is Inside the Dish to the Poor?
This is a hard saying in the sense that it is not easily understood. Other sayings about giving to the poor are hard in the sense that, while their meaning is all too plain, it goes against the grain to put them into action. “Sell your possessions and give to the poor”
(Lk 12:33) is one of these; not even the assurance that this is a way of laying up treasure in heaven makes it altogether easy to comply with it. But what are the things
“inside the dish” that are to be given?
This saying comes in a context where Jesus rebukes some religious people for insisting on the external forms of religious practice while overlooking the inward and essential realities. No amount of ritual washing of the hands or other parts of the body will be of any avail if the heart is not pure. Only a foolish person would be careful to wash the outside of a cup or dish after use and pay no attention to the inside; the inside generally requires more careful washing than the outside. It is even more foolish to pay meticulous heed to external observances when inwardly one is “full of greed and wickedness.” What, then, is the point of the immediately following exhortation, “But give what is inside the dish to the poor”? How will that make “everything … clean for you”?
If one looks at the Greek text, the first clause of Luke 11:41 could be translated differently: “But give to the poor those things that are within your control (or at your disposal).” Could this go well with the next clause: “and everything will be clean for you”? It might: this would not be the only text in the Bible to imply that giving to the poor is a means of ethical purification. Daniel, impressing on King Nebuchadnezzar the urgent necessity of mending his ways, advised him: “Renounce your sins by doing what is right [which may well mean giving to the poor], and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed” (Dan 4:27). It may be that then your prosperity will continue.
But could the rendering “give to the poor those things that are within your control” go well with what precedes? It might be argued that since Jesus had just mentioned greed as one of the things which pollute a person’s inner life, giving, which is the opposite of greed, would have a cleansing instead of a polluting effect. Even so, the flow of thought is not smooth.
Luke’s form of the saying, however, cannot be considered in isolation from the parallel text in Matthew 23:25. There too the words come in the course of criticism of those
Pharisees who, as Jesus says, “clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside … are full of greed and self-indulgence.” Then comes his direction: “first clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.” First things first, in other words. But the difficulty raised by Luke’s form of the saying has disappeared: “first clean the inside” is much more intelligible than “give what is inside the dish to the poor.”
Has Matthew eased a difficult construction which Luke left unchanged, as he found it?
That is possible. But another possibility is pointed out by some scholars. Whereas Matthew and Luke seem at times to use the same Greek translation of the Q sayings, there are other times when they use different translations of one Aramaic original. Here
“clean” and “give to the poor” could be translations of two quite similar Aramaic verbs; they could even be alternative translations of one and the same Aramaic verb, in two different senses. This could be the explanation of the difference between the versions of Matthew and Luke, but since the original Aramaic wording of the saying has not survived, the explanation must remain speculative.
12:4–5 Whom Should We Fear?
The first part of this saying presents no difficulty. Jesus faced violent death himself, and he warned his disciples more than once that they might expect no less. “Brother will betray brother to death,” he said. “All men will hate you because of me” (Mt 10:21–22). In a counterpart to these words in the Fourth Gospel he tells them that “a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God”
(Jn 16:2). But those who put them to death could do them no more harm. Stephen might be stoned to death, but his eyes were filled with the vision of the Son of Man standing to welcome him as his advocate and friend at the right hand of God (Acts 7:56). So too Paul, on the eve of execution, could say with confidence, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely me to his heavenly kingdom”
(2 Tim 4:18).
It is the second part of the saying that raises a question. Whereas in both Gospels
“those who kill the body” are referred to in the plural, the person who is really to be feared is mentioned in the singular: it is he “who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell” or, as it is put in Matthew’s version, “who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10:28). Who is he?
There are those who “kill the body but cannot kill the soul,” as it runs in Matthew; there are others who do serious damage to the souls of men, women and children by reducing them to obedient automata, by leading them into sin, or in other ways. Are such people to be feared more than ordinary murderers? Perhaps they are. The singular pronoun him in “fear him” could mean “that sort of person.” But it is more probable that Jesus meant “Be more afraid of the condemnation of God than of the death sentence of human beings.” This sense is not unparalleled in Jewish literature of the period. In a document from Jewish Alexandria, the fourth book of Maccabees (which quite certainly has not influenced the present saying of Jesus or been influenced by it), seven brothers about to be martyred because of the refusal to renounce their faith encourage one another in these words: “Let us not fear him who thinks he is killing us; for great conflict and danger to the soul is laid up in eternal torment for those who transgress the commandment of God” (4 Macc 13:14–15). If they are put to death for their fidelity to God, they have the sure hope of eternal life; if through fear of physical
death they prove unfaithful to him, certain retribution awaits them. The sense is more or less the same in Jesus’ present saying. The one who has power to cast into hell is not, as some have suggested, the devil; if he is resisted, he can do no real harm to the follower of Jesus. It is God who is to be feared:
Fear him, ye saints, and you will then
Have nothing else to fear.
The “hell” mentioned here is Gehenna, the place of eternal destruction after death.
There are Jewish parallels for the belief, attested in Matthew’s form of the saying, that soul and body alike are consumed in the fire of Gehenna.
It is noteworthy that in both Gospels, immediately after the warning that the condemnation of God is to be feared, comes the encouragement that the protecting love of God is to be trusted: the God who takes note of the fall of a single sparrow knows every hair of his children’s heads (Lk 12:6–7; Mt 10:29–31).
See also comment on proverbs 1:7.
12:10 An Unpardonable Sin?
See comment on mark 3:28–29.
12:33–34 Sell Your Possessions?
See comment on mark 10:21.
12:49 Bringing Fire to Earth?
This saying is hard in the sense of being difficult to understand, mainly because it is not obviously related to the context in which it appears. It may be thought probable that it is somehow connected with the saying immediately following about the baptism that Jesus had to undergo before current restraints were removed, but this cannot be taken for granted. Each of the two sayings must first be examined by itself.
It is natural to link the “fire” in this saying with the “fire” mentioned in John the Baptist’s description of the work to be accomplished by the one whose way he was preparing: “But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Lk 3:16).
The fire is closely associated here with the Holy Spirit. A shorter form of John’s words is found in Mark 1:8; there, however, there is no mention of fire: “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Matthew, like Luke, adds the words “and with fire” (Mt 3:11), and both Matthew and Luke go on to report further words of John about the Coming One: “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Mt 3:12; Lk 3:17). It is worth bearing in mind that the same word is used in Greek, the language of the Gospels, for “Spirit,” “breath” and “wind”; similarly in the language normally spoken by John and Jesus, Aramaic, one and the same word did duty for all three
The picture John draws is of the grain and the chaff lying piled up on the threshing floor after the harvest. The mixture of grain and chaff is tossed up into the air with the winnowing fork or shovel; the light chaff is blown away by the wind and the heavier grain falls back on the floor, from which it is collected to be stored in the granary. The chaff is then swept up and burned. Both the wind and the fire are symbols of the Holy Spirit; they depict the work that the Coming One is to do by the power of the Spirit, separating the true children of the kingdom from those who were only nominally so.
(The figure of chaff is an ancient one in this kind of context; according to Ps 1:4, “the wicked … are like chaff that the wind blows away.”)
Jesus’ ministry was not exactly the ministry of judgment that John envisaged, but a ministry of sifting and separating it certainly was. Yet Jesus plainly looked for something further when he said, “I came to set the earth on fire, and how I wish the fire had already broken out!”
One suggestion links these words with the hard saying that comes shortly afterward in Luke 12:51–53, where Jesus says that he did not come to give peace on earth but rather division. We shall have to consider this hard saying also, but the difficulty about understanding the fire in Luke 12:49 in the sense of the division and strife that Jesus foresaw as the effect of his ministry lies in his earnest wish that the fire “were already kindled.” He foresaw the division and strife indeed as the effect of his ministry, but he did not desire it. It is more satisfactory to take these words as the expression of a longing for an outpouring of the Spirit in power the like of which had not yet been seen.
Jesus himself experienced a personal outpouring of the Spirit at his baptism in the Jordan. A pictorial account of this outpouring in terms of fire is preserved in the second-century Christian writer Justin Martyr: “When Jesus went down into the water a fire was kindled in the Jordan.”7 [7 Justin Dialogue with Trypho 88.3.] The same figure appears in a saying ascribed to Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas and elsewhere: “He who is near me is near the fire, and he who is far from me is far from the kingdom.”8 [8 Gospel of Thomas, Saying 82; also in Origen Homilies on Jeremiah 20.3.] The fire was there in Jesus’ ministry, but the earth had not yet caught fire. One day it would catch fire in earnest, with the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; but Jesus himself had to die before this consummation could be realized, and while his death is not explicitly mentioned in these words about the fire, it is probably implied as a prospect beneath their surface. Hence the note of poignancy which can be discerned.
12:50 Distressed Until Baptism Completed?
There is nothing in the immediate context of this saying, which is found only in Luke’s Gospel, to throw light on its meaning. It must be read in the wider context of Jesus’
whole teaching and ministry. In form it resembles the saying which precedes it, in which Jesus longs that the fire which he came to start were already kindled, but in sense it has much in common with those sayings in which the kingdom of God is seen to be subject to temporary limitations until something happens to unleash its full power. Here it is Jesus himself who is subject to a temporary limitation. As the NEB
[NEB New English Bible] renders the saying: “I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until the ordeal is over!”
Two questions are raised by the saying: (1) What was the baptism Jesus had to undergo? (2) What was the constraint under which he had to work until this baptism had taken place?
First, there is little doubt that by his baptism Jesus meant his impending death. This is confirmed by the record of another occasion on which he used similar language. On Jesus’ last journey to Jerusalem, Mark tells us, he was approached by James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, who asked that they might be given the two positions of chief honor when his kingdom was established—the one at his right hand and the other at his left. Their request betrayed an almost ludicrous misconception of the nature of the kingdom of which Jesus spoke, but he began to set them right by asking a question which at first did not seem to have much bearing on what they had said. “Tell me this,”
he replied: “Are you able to drink from my cup and be baptized with my baptism?”
When they said, “We are,” he replied, “You shall—but even so that will not guarantee you the two chief places for which you ask.” When he asked, “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” (Mk 10:38), he meant, simply, “Are you able to share my suffering and death?” In fact, they did not share his suffering and death—not, at least, at the time when he was crucified. If things had turned out otherwise, if the crosses which flanked the cross of Jesus had been occupied not by the two robbers but by James and John, would they not have secured there and then the two positions of chief honor—the one at his right hand and the other at his left? In all subsequent Christian memory this high glory would have been exclusively theirs.
For our present purpose, however, we note that Jesus spoke then of his impending suffering and death as his “baptism,” and that supports the suggestion that the baptism to which he looked forward in the saying now under consideration bears the same meaning. If that is so, a further question arises: Why did he speak of his suffering and death as a baptism? He had undergone one baptism at the beginning of his ministry, his baptism in the Jordan. Was there some feature of that baptism, administered by John the Baptist, which lent itself to this figurative use?
John’s baptism is said to have been “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mk 1:4). That is to say, people who were convicted of sin under John’s preaching were invited to give public proof of their repentance by accepting baptism at his hands. Thus their sins would be forgiven and they would be “a people prepared for the Lord” (Lk 1:17), ready for the moment when he would begin to execute his judgment through the agency of a person whom John denoted as the “Coming One.”
Jesus recognized John’s ministry to be a work of God and associated himself with it publicly by asking John to baptize him. True, Jesus at no time betrays any awareness of sin, any sense of repentance, any need for forgiveness. Yet he was never unwilling to associate with sinners; indeed, he was written off by some godly people as a “friend of sinners” (and therefore, by implication, no better than the company he kept). So his association with repentant sinners in receiving John’s baptism was in keeping with his later practice.
Even so, some difficulty was felt about Jesus’ undergoing a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Matthew in his account tells how John himself demurred at Jesus’ request, saying, “It would be more fitting that I should be baptized by you; why do you come to me?” Jesus’ response to John’s protest is excellently rendered in the NEB [NEB New English Bible] : “Let it be so for the present; we do well to conform
in this way with all that God requires” (Mt 3:15). These words are recorded by Matthew only, but they express perfectly the spirit in which Jesus sought and received John’s baptism. That this is so is confirmed by his experience when he came up from the river: he saw heaven split in two and the Spirit of God descending on him in the form of a dove, while a voice addressed him from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Mk 1:10–11). It was as though God said to him,
“You dedicate yourself to the doing of my will? You conform in this way with all that I require? I tell you this, then: you are my Son, my chosen one, the one in whom I delight.” Jesus’ period of testing in the wilderness, which followed immediately after his baptism, reinforced the strength of his commitment to do the will of God without deviation.
But what did this have to do with the baptism to which he looked forward? He could, no doubt, have referred to his death, with the events leading up to it, as his baptism in the sense of a sea of troubles that threatened to overwhelm him. But in the light of the baptism which inaugurated his public ministry, we can see more in his language than that. His baptism in the Jordan gave visible expression to his resolution to fulfill the will of God, and it involved at least a token identification of himself with sinners. The ministry thus inaugurated manifested his constant devotion to the will of God and was marked by unaffected friendship with sinners. His death, which crowned that ministry, consummated his embracing of the will of God as the rule for his life, and it involved a real and personal identification of himself with sinners, on the part of One sinless himself. In this way he embodied the Old Testament picture of the obedient and suffering Servant of the Lord who “bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Is 53:12).
It is not for nothing that one of the latest New Testament documents voices the Christian confession in these words: “This is the one who came by water and blood—
Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood” (1 Jn 5:6)—or, as we might say, not only with the baptism of water, but with the baptism of water and the baptism of death. The baptism of water, which inaugurated his ministry, was a faint anticipation of the baptism of death, which crowned his ministry.
What, then, was the constraint to which he was subject until he underwent this impending baptism? The answer to this part of our question is closely bound up with the meaning of another of Jesus’ hard sayings—that about the kingdom of God coming with power (Mk 9:1). While Jesus was amply endowed with the Spirit of God for the messianic ministry that began at his baptism in the Jordan and continued until his death, his death and resurrection unleashed a power that was previously unparalleled. The limitation of which he was conscious during his ministry was due to the fact that, as it is put in the Fourth Gospel, “Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified” (Jn 7:39).
I have spoken of Jesus’ messianic ministry as lasting from his baptism in the Jordan to his death on the cross, but it would be more accurate to speak of that as the first phase of his ministry. His ministry did not come to an end with his death; he resumed it when he rose again, and continues it until now, no longer in visible presence on earth but by his Spirit in his followers. We should not think of the apostles as taking up the task which Jesus left unfinished at his death; we should think of them rather as called to share in his still very personal ongoing ministry. This is the perspective of the New Testament writers. Luke, for example, opens the second volume of his history of Christian beginnings—the volume we call the Acts of the Apostles—by referring back
to the first volume as the record of “all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up” (Acts 1:1–2). The implication is that the new volume is going to tell of what Jesus continued to do and teach from the day in which he was taken up.
To the same effect Paul, looking back on the major phase of his apostolic career, speaks of its very considerable achievements as “what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done—by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit” (Rom 15:18–19).
The scale of the Christian achievement within a few years from the death and resurrection of Christ was out of all proportion to that of his personal achievement during his Palestinian ministry. The limitation was removed by the outpouring of the Spirit as the sequel to Christ’s saving work. But without the Palestinian ministry, crowned by his death and resurrection, there would have been no such sequel, and the achievement that followed the outpouring of the Spirit was still Christ’s personal achievement. He had undergone his baptism of death, and now worked on free of all restraint.
13:6–8 What Is the Fig Tree?
See comment on mark 11:14.
13:27 Why Shut Out?
See comment on matthew 25:11–12.
13:30 The First Will Be Last?
See comment on mark 10:31.
14:26 Hate Your Parents?
This is a hard saying in more senses than one: it is hard to accept and it is hard to reconcile with the general teaching of Jesus. The attitude it seems to recommend goes against the grain of nature, and it also goes against the law of love to one’s neighbor which Jesus emphasized to a radical extent. If the meaning of “neighbor” must be extended so as to include one’s enemy, it must not be restricted so as to exclude one’s nearest and dearest.
What does it mean, then? It means that, just as property can come between us and the kingdom of God, so can family ties. The interests of God’s kingdom must be paramount with the followers of Jesus, and everything else must take second place to them, even family ties. We tend to agree that there is something sordid about the attitude that gives priority to money-making over the nobler and more humane issues of life. But a proper care for one’s family is one of those nobler and more humane issues. Jesus himself censured those theologians who argued that people who had vowed to give God a sum of money that they later discovered was needed to help their parents were not free to divert the money from the religious purposes to which it had been vowed in order to meet a parental need. This, he said, was a violation of the
commandment to honor one’s father and mother (Mk 7:9–13).
Nevertheless, a man or woman might be so bound up by family ties as to have no time or interest for matters of even greater moment, and there could be no matter of greater moment than the kingdom of God. The husband and father was normally the head of the household, and he might look on his family as an extension of his own personality to the point where love for his family was little more than an extended form of self-love. Jesus strongly deprecated such an inward-looking attitude and used the strongest terms to express his disapproval of it. If “hating” one’s relatives is felt to be a shocking idea, it was meant to be shocking, to shock the hearers into a sense of the imperious demands of the kingdom of God. We know that in biblical idiom to hate can mean to love less. When, for example, regulations are laid down in the Old Testament law for a man who has two wives, “one beloved, and another hated” (Deut 21:15 KJV [KJV
King James Version] ), it is not necessary to suppose that he positively hates the latter wife; all that need be meant is that he loves her less than the other and must be prevented from showing favoritism to the other’s son when he allocates his property among his heirs. The RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] indicates that positive hatred is not intended by speaking of the one wife as “the loved” and the other as “the disliked,” but the Hebrew word used is that which regularly means “hated,” as in the KJV [KJV King James Version] .
That “hating” in this saying of Jesus means loving less is shown by the parallel saying in Matthew 10:37: “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” In Matthew’s Gospel these words are followed by the saying about taking up the cross and following Jesus; the implication of this sequence is that giving one’s family second place to the kingdom of God is one way of taking up the cross.
We can perhaps understand more easily the action of those who choose a celibate life to devote themselves unreservedly to the service of God, those who, as Jesus said on another occasion, “have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 19:12 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ; see comment on Mt 19:12). But the saying with which we are at present concerned refers to those who are already married and have children, not to speak of dependent parents. That Jesus’
followers included some who had dependents like these and had left them to follow him is plain from his own words: “No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age … and in the age to come, eternal life” (Mk 10:29–30). Might this not involve the abandonment of natural responsibilities? Who, for example, looked after Peter’s family when he took to the road as a disciple of Jesus? We are not told. Clearly his wife survived the experience, and her affections apparently survived it also, for twenty-five years later Peter was accustomed to take her along with him on his missionary journeys (1 Cor 9:5).