Warnings And Encouragements
WARNINGS AND ENCOURAGEMENTS
LUKE 12:1-12
Jesus wants his disciples to fear, but fear the right person!
It is difficult to say whether Luke has concentrated at this point a number of utterances, or whether this is a condensed summary of one address. Teaching was repetitive and the same illustrative material or metaphor could have been used with more than one point of exhortation.
The disciples are bidden to avoid the dissimulation of the Pharisees. The vice of the Pharisees was the concealment of an unsanctified life behind an exterior of complicated holiness. They acted a part, and that is precisely what hypocrisy means. But “play-acting” can have other interpretations. It can find a place in the Christian who conceals his real convictions, and tries to hide his faith. If conviction is real and faith genuine, such dissimulation is vain (12:2). Therefore anticipate the inevitable, and boldly speak out about the truth (12:3).
And why do people hesitate to do this? Fear of man is the inhibiting force (12:4), which should take second place, natural though it is, to reverence for God (12:5). Consider Joseph’s “fear” of God (Genesis 39:9), Ezra’s (Ezra 8:22), Nehemiah’s (Nehemiah 6:11). God knows and understands (12:6-7). By the roadside still in Lebanon the vendors of small birds stand, with the tiny feathered creatures hanging pathetically in dozens upon uplifted sticks. They were sold two a penny, said Matthew; five for twopence, says Luke. So worthless were the small birds that an extra carcass was thrown in for the larger sale. But even such trivial death does not elude God’s knowledge. Let those who trust such a God value above all God’s honor and acknowledgment (12:8). To deny him is to forfeit such acceptance (12:9).
Indeed, denial can be rejection, and this thought must have led in the context of the full discourse to the solemn theme which Matthew and Mark develop more fully, the “sin against the Holy Spirit.” It is obvious that this must mean ultimate, deliberate and final rejection of Christ as Savior, the self-willed and conscious repression of the movement of God’s convicting Spirit in the heart and conscience, wilfully imputing to the workings of Satan that which is manifestly of the grace of God. Denying God can end in such disaster (12:10).
Notes 12:5: “hell”—Gehenna, Gk.; the valley of the sons of Hihnom, outside Jerusalem, where fires burned continually to consume rubbish (see Joshua 15:8; 18:16; 2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 7:31). The name was used metaphorically for a place of punishment after death. 12:8: on confessing Jesus, see Matthew 10:32; Romans 10:9; Philippians 2:11; 1 Timothy 6:13; Revelation 3:5.