He said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I complete my mission.
Parallel Translations
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He said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I complete my mission.
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And he sayd vnto them. Goo ye and tell that foxe beholde I cast oute devyls and heale the people to daye and to morowe and the third daye I make an ende.
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Then said he vnto them, Goe ye and tell that foxe, Beholde, I cast out deuils, and will heale still to day, and to morowe, and the third day I shalbe perfected.
Cross-references (15)
Passages linked to Luke 13:32 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Hebrews 2:10 For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many children to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
- Hebrews 5:9 Having been made perfect, he became to all of those who obey him the author of eternal salvation,
- John 17:4-5 I glorified you on the earth. I have accomplished the work which you have given me to do. Now, Father, glorify me with your own self with the glory which I had with you before the world existed.
- John 11:8-10 The disciples asked him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you. Are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Aren’t there twelve hours of daylight? If a man walks in the day, he doesn’t stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if a man walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light isn’t in him.”
- Ezekiel 13:4 Israel, your prophets have been like foxes in the waste places.
- Luke 9:7-9 Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him; and he was very perplexed, because it was said by some that John had risen from the dead, and by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the old prophets had risen again. Herod said, “I beheaded John, but who is this about whom I hear such things?” He sought to see him.
- Mark 6:14 King Herod heard this, for his name had become known, and he said, “John the Baptizer has risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him.”
- Luke 23:8-11 Now when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceedingly glad, for he had wanted to see him for a long time, because he had heard many things about him. He hoped to see some miracle done by him. He questioned him with many words, but he gave no answers. The chief priests and the scribes stood, vehemently accusing him. Herod with his soldiers humiliated him and mocked him. Dressing him in luxurious clothing, they sent him back to Pilate.
- John 10:32 Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of those works do you stone me?”
- Hebrews 7:28 For the law appoints men as high priests who have weakness, but the word of the oath which came after the law appoints a Son forever who has been perfected.
- Micah 3:1-3 I said, “Please listen, you heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: Isn’t it for you to know justice? You who hate the good, and love the evil; who tear off their skin, and their flesh from off their bones; who also eat the flesh of my people, and peel their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as meat within the cauldron.
- Zephaniah 3:3 Her princes within her are roaring lions. Her judges are evening wolves. They leave nothing until the next day.
- Mark 6:26-28 The king was exceedingly sorry, but for the sake of his oaths, and of his dinner guests, he didn’t wish to refuse her. Immediately the king sent out a soldier of his guard, and commanded to bring John’s head, and he went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the young lady; and the young lady gave it to her mother.
- Luke 3:19-20 but Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by him for Herodias, his brother’s wife, and for all the evil things which Herod had done, added this also to them all, that he shut up John in prison.
- John 19:30 When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished.” He bowed his head, and gave up his spirit.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (15 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain That deceitful and treacherous man.
That deceitful and treacherous man.
That is, a small time, and Theophylact saith, it is a proverb: or else, by Today, we may understand the time that now is, and by Tomorrow, the time to come, meaning thereby all the time of his ministry and office.
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To wit, when the sacrifice for sin is ended.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 32 And he said unto them, Go ye, and…
32 And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.
Ver. 32. Today and tomorrow] i.e. As long as I wish, without his leave. Faith makes a man walk about the world as a conqueror.
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I shall be perfected] Or, I shall be sacrificed, as Pareus rendereth it, τελειουμαι, In sacrificium offerar.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Nevertheless, I must walk,.... The Syriac version reads, "I…
Nevertheless, I must walk,.... The Syriac version reads, "I must work", and so the Arabic: as going about doing good, casting out devils, and healing diseases:
today and tomorrow, and the day following: a few days more in Galilee, and towards Jerusalem: all the Oriental versions read, "the day following I shall depart"; either out of this world; or out of Galilee, and go to Jerusalem, and there suffer and die:
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for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem; because the great sanhedrim only sat at Jerusalem, to whom it belonged to try and judge a prophet; and if found false, to condemn him, and put him to death; the rule is this (e);
"they do not judge, neither a tribe, nor a false prophet, nor an high priest, but by the sanhedrim of seventy and one.''
Not but that prophets sometimes perished elsewhere, as John the Baptist in Galilee; but not according to a judicial process, in which way Christ the prophet was to be cut off, nor was it common; instances of this kind were rare, and always in a violent way; and even such as were sentenced to death by the lesser sanhedrim, were brought to Jerusalem, and publicly executed there, whose crimes were of another sort; for so runs the canon (f);
"they do not put any one to death by the sanhedrim, which is in his city, nor by the sanhedrim in Jabneh; but they bring him to the great, sanhedrim in Jerusalem, and keep him till the feast, and put him to death on a feast day, as it is said Deu 17:13 "and all the people shall hear and fear."''
And since Jerusalem was the place where the prophets were usually put to death, it follows,
(e) Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 1. sect. 5. & T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 18. 2. (f) Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 10. sect. 4.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain And he said, Go and tell that fox -…
And he said, Go and tell that fox - With great propriety so called, for his subtilty and cowardice. The meaning of our Lord's answer is, Notwithstanding all that he can do, I shall for the short time I have left, do the works of him that sent me. When that time is fulfilled, I shall be offered up. Yet not here, but in the bloody city. Behold, I cast out devils - With what majesty does he speak to his enemies! With what tenderness to his friends! The third day I am perfected - On the third day he left Galilee, and set out for Jerusalem, to die there. But let us carefully distinguish between those things wherein Christ is our pattern, and those which were peculiar to his office. His extraordinary office justified him in using that severity of language, when speaking of wicked princes, and corrupt teachers, to which we have no call; and by which we should only bring scandal on religion, and ruin on ourselves, while we irritated rather than convinced or reformed those whom we so indecently rebuked.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 32. Tell that fox] Herod was a very…
Verse 32. Tell that fox] Herod was a very vicious prince, and lived in public incest with his sister-in-law, Mr 6:17: if our Lord meant him here, it is hard to say why the character of fox, which implies cunning, design, and artifice, to hide evil intentions, should be attributed to him, who never seemed studious to conceal his vices. But we may suppose that Christ, who knew his heart, saw that he covered his desire for the destruction of our Lord, under the pretence of zeal for the law and welfare of the Jewish people. A fox among the Jews appears to have been the emblem of a wicked ruler, who united cunning with cruelty, and was always plotting how he might aggrandize himself by spoiling the people. See a quotation in Schoettgen.
The following observation from the judicious Bishop Pearce deserves attention. "It is not certain," says he, "that Jesus meant Herod here; he might only have intended to call that man so, from whom the advice of departing came, (whether from the speaker himself, or the person who sent him,) for it is probable, that the advice was given craftily, and with design to frighten Jesus, and, make him go from that place."
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To-day and to-morrow] I am to work miracles for two days more, and on the third day I shall be put to death. But it is probable that this phrase only means, that he had but a short time to live, without specifying its duration.
Perfected.] Or finished, τελειουμαι. I shall then have accomplished the purpose for which I came into the world, leaving nothing undone which the counsel of God designed me to complete. Hence, in reference to our Lord, the word implies his dying; as the plan of human redemption was not finished, till he bowed his head and gave up the ghost on the cross: see Joh 19:30, where the same word is used. It is used also in reference to Christ's death, He 2:10; He 5:9; see also Ac 20:24, and He 12:23. The word finish, &c., is used in the same sense both by the Greeks and Latins. See KYPKE.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Tell that fox - A fox is an emblem…
Tell that fox - A fox is an emblem of slyness, of cunning, and of artful mischief. The word is also used to denote a dissembler. Herod was a wicked man, but the “particular thing” to which Jesus here alludes is not his “vices,” but his “cunning, his artifice,” in endeavoring to remove him out of his territory. He had endeavored to do it by stratagem - by sending these people who pretended great friendship for his life.
Behold, I cast out devils ... - Announce to him the fact that I am working miracles in his territory, and that I shall continue to do it. I am not afraid of his art or his enmity. I am engaged in my appropriate work, and shall continue to be as long as is proper, in spite of his arts and his threats.
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Today and tomorrow - A little time. The words seem here to be used not strictly, but proverbially - to denote a short space of time. Let not Herod be uneasy. I am doing no evil; I am not violating the laws. I only cure the sick, etc. In a little time this part of my work will be done, and I shall retire from his dominions.
The third day - After a little time. Perhaps, however, he meant “literally” that he would depart on that day for Jerusalem; that for two or three days more he would remain in the villages of Galilee, and then go on his way to Jerusalem.
I shall be perfected - Rather, I shall have ended my course “here;” I shall have “perfected” what I purpose to do in Galilee. It does not refer to his “personal” perfection, for he was always perfect, but it means that he would have “finished or completed” what he purposed to do in the regions of Herod. He would have completed his work, and would be ready then to go.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain It is rather surprising that Christ should make use…
It is rather surprising that Christ should make use of these opprobrious words, which could be of no service to himself, but which would only serve to irritate king Herod, should they come to his ears. But Christ, by these words, probably wished to shew that he was not the least afraid of him whom the Pharisees feigned to have a design on his life: for it is supposed that the Pharisees had invented this fiction, in order to compel him to leave them quiet. (Maldonatus)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain that fox--that crafty, cruel enemy of God's innocent servants.
that fox--that crafty, cruel enemy of God's innocent servants.
Behold, I cast out devils and I do cures--that is, "Plot on and ply thy wiles; I also have My plans; My works of mercy are nearing completion, but some yet remain; I have work for to-day and to-morrow too, and the third day; by that time I shall be where his jurisdiction reaches not; the guilt of My blood shall not lie at his door; that dark deed is reserved for others." He does not say, I preach the Gospel--that would have made little impression upon Herod--in the light of the merciful character of Christ's actions the malice of Herod's snares is laid bare [BENGEL].
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to-day, to-morrow, the third day--remarkable language expressive of successive steps of His work yet remaining, the calm deliberateness with which He meant to go through with them, one after another, to the last, unmoved by Herod's threat, yet the rapid march with which they were now hastening to completion. (Compare Luk 22:37).
I shall be perfected--I finish my course, I attain completion.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 32. Go ye and tell—These men did not claim…
32. Go ye and tell—These men did not claim really to have come from Herod Antipas. They do not pretend to report Herod’s own words as from him. But Jesus does, in his reply, recognize the fact which they leave unexpressed. He assumes that they came from Herod as with a murderous message, and he sends back his reply to Antipas by them. Our Lord thus unmasks the whole deceit, and holds Antipas responsible for at once his cunning and his cruelty.
That fox—Who conceals himself, yet threatens my life through you. Those who charge our Lord here with improper disrespect to his human sovereign, ought to see that the term fox is a just rebuke for Herod’s sin of artfulness.
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Though our Lord uses this epithet to rebuke the present duplicity of Herod Antipas, yet fox-like cunning was one of the permanent qualities which he either possessed or affected. Wetstein says: “He, like many other princes of his time, shaped his manners after the model of the Emperor Tiberius, who, among all traits of character, prided himself upon his own dissimulation. Then Herod was an old fox, since he had held the government now thirty years and had played the most diverse characters. He played the slave to Tiberius, the master to Galilee, the friend to the Emperor’s prime favourite Sejanus, and to his own three brothers, Archelaus, Philip, and Herod II.; all whose dispositions were most opposite to each other, and to the temper of Antipas himself.”
Today and to-morrow—The method of Wieseler, as we have remarked, (p. 101,) furnishes here a very apt adjustment. Most commentators have been obliged to explain this phrase of time to be indefinite. This arises from their inability to indicate any particular period of two or three days which it can be applied to measure. But turn to Joh_11:6, and we find that after he received, at this very locality, the message of Lazarus’s death from the sisters of Bethany, he abode two days, and then said, Let us go into Judea. Let us suppose that the spies of Herod and the messenger of the sisters arrived at about the same hour, and the two days of John are just these two days of Jesus. Starting on the third day, Jesus would reach Bethany on the fourth, and find Lazarus four days dead. Joh_11:39. And so, too, if a message touching Lazarus and Herod Antipas arrived at the same time, we see how it happens that in a parable delivered a few hours afterwards a Lazarus and an infidel Rich Man present themselves to view. (See note on Luk_21:19-31.) And we may add that, keeping Antipas in view, we may, perhaps, discover a connection in the passage Luk_16:13-18, which commentators have been so puzzled to find.
The third day I shall be perfected—The Greek for I shall be perfected) τελειουμαι, (being, as Van Oosterzee maintains, a present middle,) signifies, I complete or finish; namely my Peraean work.
So fearless and calm was the Saviour’s reply to the despot. Spite of the bloody threat, he will remain his full appointed time; he will perform those cures and dispossessions of demons that excite the tetrarch’s anxiety; he will then leave his work, not half done, but complete and perfected.
This period of two or three days covers, all our Lord’s discourse to Luk_17:10. How should we divide the matter into the days? It is not easy to say. We suggest that on the first day Jesus attends the feast, Luk_14:1-24 and Luk_14:25-35 is delivered to the crowd that followed him as he returned from the feast to his abode. On the second day are the assemblage and discourse, Luk_15:1 to Luk_16:31; while Luk_17:1-10 is uttered to the disciples on his way to Bethany.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 32. that fox] Rather, this she-fox, as though Christ…
32. that fox] Rather, this she-fox, as though Christ saw him actually present, or identified his fox-like nature with that which the Pharisees were now displaying. The fact that the word is feminine may be only due to its being generic. The fox was among the ancients, as well as among the modems, the type of knavish craftiness and covert attack. This is the only word of unmitigated contempt (as distinguished from rebuke and scorn) recorded among the utterances of Christ, and it was more than justified by the mingled tyranny and timidity, insolence and baseness of Herod Antipas—a half-Samaritan, half-Idumaean tetrarch, who, professing Judaism, lived in heathen practices, and governed by the grace of Caesar and the help of alien mercenaries; who had murdered the greatest of the Prophets to gratify a dancing wanton; and who was living at that moment in an adultery doubly-incestuous with a woman of whom he had treacherously robbed his brother while he was his guest.
to day and to morrow] It is probable that these expressions are general (as in Hos_6:2). They mean ‘I shall stay in Herod’s dominions with perfect security for a brief while longer till my work is done.’ It must be remembered that Peraea was in the tetrarchate of Herod, so that this incident may have occurred during the slow and solemn progress towards Jerusalem.
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the third day I shall be perfected] The word teleioumai has been variously rendered and explained. Bleek makes it mean ‘I shall end’ (my work in Galilee); Godet, ‘I am being perfected,’ in the sense of ‘I shall arrive at the destined end of my work;’ Resch, ‘] complete my work’ by one crowning miracle (Joh_11:40-44). This solemn meaning best accords with other usages of the word, e.g. in the cry from the Cross tetelestai, ‘It is finished’ (Joh_19:30). See too Heb_5:9; Heb_11:40. Teleiosis became an ecclesiastical term for ‘martyrdom.’
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (32) Go ye, and tell that fox . .…
(32) Go ye, and tell that fox . . .—The word was eminently descriptive of the character both of the Tetrarch individually, and of the whole Herodian house. The fact that the Greek word for “fox” is always used as a feminine, gives, perhaps, a special touch of indignant force to the original. He had so identified himself with Herodias that he had lost his manliness, and the proverbial type of the worst form of woman’s craft was typical of him.
Behold, I cast out devils.—What was the meaning of the message? What we read in Luk_23:8, perhaps, supplies the answer to that question. Herod “hoped to have seen some miracle done by Him,” and Jesus, reading his thoughts, tells him that the time for such sights and wonders was all but over. One day, and yet another, and yet a third—so our Lord describes, in proverbial speech (comp. the analogous forms of Exo_5:14; Hos_6:2), an interval of very short duration, and then “I am perfected.” The word is strictly a present tense used predictively, and may be either middle or passive in its meaning, the latter being most in harmony with the use of the verb elsewhere. “Then I am brought to the end; then I reach the goal of this human life of Mine.” Very noteworthy in connection with this passage is the prominence given to the verb throughout the Epistle to the Hebrews, as, e.g., in Heb_2:10; Heb_5:9.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell…
And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox; literally, that she-fox. The Lord saw through the shallow device, and, in reply to his false friends, bade them go to that intriguing and false court with a message which he would give them, The epithet "she-fox" is perhaps the bitterest and most contemptuous name ever given by the pitiful Master to any of the sons of men. It is possible it might have been intended for Herodias, the influence of that wicked princess being at that time all-powerful at court.
Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. "Tell Herod or Herodias that I have a work still to work here; a few more evil spirits to cast out, a few more sick folk to heal. I am going on as I have begun; no message, friendly or unfriendly, will turn me from my purpose. I have no fears of his royal power, but I shall not trouble him long; just to-day and to-morrow this was merely (as in Hos_6:2) a proverbial expression for a short time and on the third day I complete my work." This completion some have understood by the crowning miracle on dead Lazarus at Bethany, but it is far better to understand it as referring to the Passion, as including the last sufferings, the cross, and the resurrection. The teleioumai here was supplemented by the utterance with which the blessed life came to its close on the cross Tetelestai ! Teleiwsiv became a recognized term for martyrdom.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 32, 33. Tell that fox. Herod's most marked characteristic…
32, 33. Tell that fox. Herod's most marked characteristic was unscrupulous cunning. The Lord uses the term to indicate that he understood the scheme. It was an artifice of Herod and the Pharisees to get him away. Herod was afraid to kill him on account of his popularity. I perform cures to-day. The meaning is, “I will attend to my present work here, which is only for a little season,” and the third day, in a short time. I shall be perfected. By the suffering at Jerusalem. See Heb. 2:10. In other words, he will go freely about his work, but will soon be put to death, but not by Herod, who had no jurisdiction at Jerusalem. In that city he would die, for It cannot be that a prophet should perish out of Jerusalem.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Luk 13:32 - Luk 13:33.
Luke
CHRIST’S MESSAGE TO HEROD
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Luk 13:32 - Luk 13:33.
Even a lamb might be suspicious if wolves were to show themselves tenderly careful of its safety. Pharisees taking Christ’s life under their protection were enough to suggest a trick. These men came to Christ desirous of posing as counterworking Herod’s intention to slay Him. Our Lord’s answer, bidding them go and tell Herod what He immediately communicates to them, shows that He regarded them as in a plot with that crafty, capricious kinglet. And evidently there was an understanding between them. For some reason or other, best known to his own changeable and whimsical nature, the man who at one moment was eagerly desirous to see Jesus, was at the next as eagerly desirous to get Him out of his territories; just as he admired and murdered John the Baptist. The Pharisees, on the other hand, desired to draw Him to Jerusalem, where they would have Him in their power more completely than in the northern district. If they had spoken all their minds they would have said, ‘Go hence, or else we cannot kill Thee.’ So Christ answers the hidden schemes, and not the apparent solicitude, in the words that I have taken for my text. They unmask the plot, they calmly put aside the threats of danger. They declare that His course was influenced by far other considerations. They show that He clearly saw what it was towards which He was journeying. And then, with sad irony, they declare that it, as it were, contrary to prophetic decorum and established usage that a prophet should be slain anywhere but in the streets of the bloody and sacred city.
There are many deep things in the words, which I cannot touch in the course of a single sermon; but I wish now, at all events, to skim their surface, and try to gather some of their obvious lessons.
I. First, then, note Christ’s clear vision of His death.
There is some difficulty about the chronology of this period with which I need not trouble you. It is enough to note that the incident with which we are concerned occurred during that last journey of our Lord’s towards Jerusalem and Calvary, which occupies so much of this Gospel of Luke. At what point in that fateful journey it occurred may be left undetermined. Nor need I enter upon the question as to whether the specification of time in our text, ‘to-day, and to-morrow, and the third day,’ is intended to be taken literally, as some commentators suppose, in which case it would be brought extremely near the goal of the journey; or whether, as seems more probable from the context, it is to be taken as a kind of proverbial expression for a definite but short period. That the latter is the proper interpretation seems to be largely confirmed by the fact that there is a slight variation in the application of the designation of time in the two verses of our text, ‘the third day’ in the former verse being regarded as the period of the perfecting, whilst in the latter verse it is regarded as part of the period of the progress towards the perfecting. Such variation in the application is more congruous with the idea that we have here to deal with a kind of proverbial expression for a limited and short period. Our Lord is saying in effect, ‘My time is not to be settled by Herod. It is definite, and it is short. It is needless for him to trouble himself; for in three days it will be all over. It is useless for him to trouble himself, or for you Pharisees to plot, for until the appointed days are past it will not be over, whatever you and he may do.’ The course He had yet to run was plain before Him in this last journey, every step of which was taken with the Cross full in view.
Now the worst part of death is the anticipation of death; and it became Him who bore death for every man to drink to its dregs that cup of trembling which the fear of it puts to all human lips. We rightly regard it as a cruel aggravation of a criminal’s doom if he is carried along a level, straight road with his gibbet in view at the end of the march. But so it was that Jesus Christ travelled through life.
My text comes at a comparatively late period of His history. A few months or weeks at the most intervened between Him and the end. But the consciousness which is here so calmly expressed was not of recent origin. We know that from the period of His transfiguration He began to give His death a very prominent place in His teaching, but it had been present with Him long before He thus laid emphasis upon it in His communications with His disciples. For, if we accept John’s Gospel as historical, we shall have to throw back His first public references to the end to the very beginning of His career. The cleansing of the Temple, at the very outset of His course, was vindicated by Him by the profound words, ‘Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ During the same early visit to the capital city He said to Nicodemus, ‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.’ So Christ’s career was not like that of many a man who has begun, full of sanguine hope as a possible reformer and benefactor of his fellows, and by slow degrees has awakened to the consciousness that reformers and benefactors need to be martyrs ere their ideals can be realised. There was no disillusioning in Christ’s experience. From the commencement He knew that He came, not only to minister, but also ‘to give His life a ransom for the many.’ And it was not a mother’s eye, as a reverent modern painter has profoundly, and yet erroneously, shown us in his great work in our own city gallery-it was not a mother’s eye that first saw the shadow of the Cross fall on her unconscious Son, but it was Himself that all through His earthly pilgrimage knew Himself to be the Lamb appointed for the sacrifice. This Isaac toiled up the hill, bearing the wood and the knife, and knew where and who was the Offering.
Brethren, I do not think that we sufficiently realise the importance of that element in our conceptions of the life of Jesus Christ. What a pathos it gives to it all! What a beauty it gives to His gentleness, to His ready interest in others, to His sympathy for all sorrow, and tenderness with all sin! How wonderfully it deepens the significance, the loveliness, and the pathos of the fact that ‘the Son of Man came eating and drinking,’ remembering everybody but Himself, and ready to enter into all the cares and the sorrows of other hearts, if we think that all the while there stood, grim and certain, before Him that Calvary with its Cross! Thus, through all His path, He knew to what He was journeying.
II. Then again, secondly, let me ask you to note here our Lord’s own estimate of the place which His death holds in relation to His whole work.
Notice that remarkable variation in the expression in our text. ‘The third day I shall be perfected. . . . It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.’ Then, somehow or other, the ‘perishing’ is ‘perfecting.’ There may be a doubt as to the precise rendering of the word translated by ‘perfecting’; but it seems to me that the only meaning congruous with the context is that which is suggested by the translation of our Authorised Version, and that our Lord does not mean to say ‘on the third day I shall complete My work of casting out devils and curing diseases,’ but that He masses the whole of His work into two great portions-the one of which includes all His works and ministrations of miracles and of mercy; and the other of which contains one unique and transcendent fact, which outweighs and towers above all these others, and is the perfecting of His work, and the culmination of His obedience, service, and sacrifice.
Now, of course, I need not remind you that the ‘perfecting’ thus spoken of is not a perfecting of moral character or of individual nature, but that it is the same perfecting which the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks about when it says, ‘Being made perfect, He became the Author of eternal salvation to all them which obey Him.’ That is to say, it is His perfecting in regard to office, function, work for the world, and not the completion or elevation of His individual character. And this ‘perfecting’ is effected in His ‘perishing.’
Now I want to know in what conceivable sense the death of Jesus Christ can be the culmination and crown of His work, without which it would be a torso, an incomplete fragment, a partial fulfilment of the Father’s design, and of His own mission, unless it be that that death was, as I take it the New Testament with one voice in all its parts declares it to be, a sacrifice for the sins of the world. I know of no construing of the fact of the death on the Cross which can do justice to the plain words of my text, except the old-fashioned belief that therein He made atonement for sin, and thereby, as the Lamb of God, bore away the sins of the world.
Other great lives may be crowned by fair deaths, which henceforward become seals of faithful witness, and appeals to the sentiments of the heart, but there is no sense that I know of in which from Christ’s death there can flow a mightier energy than from such a life, unless in the sense that the death is a sacrifice.
Now I know there has been harm done by the very desire to exalt Christ’s great sacrifice on the Cross; when it has been so separated from His life as that the life has not been regarded as a sacrifice, nor the death as obedience. Rather the sacrificial element runs through His whole career, and began when He became flesh and tabernacled amongst us; but yet as being the apex of it all, without which it were all-imperfect, and in a special sense redeeming men from the power of death, that Cross is set forth by His own word. For Him to ‘perish’ was to ‘be perfected.’ As the ancient prophet long before had said, ‘When His soul shall make an offering for sin,’ then, paradoxical as it may seem, the dead Man shall ‘see,’ and ‘shall see His seed.’ Or, as He Himself said, ‘If a corn of wheat fall into the ground it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit.’
I do not want to insist upon any theories of Atonement. I do want to insist that Christ’s own estimate of the significance and purpose and issue of His death shall not be slurred over, but that, recognising that He Himself regarded it as the perfecting of His work, we ask ourselves very earnestly how such a conception can be explained if we strike out of our Christianity the thought of the sacrifice for the sins of the world. Unless we take Paul’s gospel, ‘How that He died for our sins according to the Scriptures,’ I for one do not believe that we shall ever get Paul’s results, ‘Old things are passed away; all things are become new.’ If you strike the Cross off the dome of the temple, the fires on its altars will soon go out. A Christianity which has to say much about the life of Jesus, and knows not what to say about the death of Christ, will be a Christianity that will neither have much constraining power in our lives, nor be able to breathe a benediction of peace over our deaths. If we desire to be perfected in character, we must have faith in that sacrificial death which was the perfecting of Christ’s work.
III. And so, lastly, notice our Lord’s resolved surrender to the discerned Cross.
There is much in this aspect in the words of my text which I cannot touch upon now; but two or three points I may briefly notice.
Note then, I was going to say, the superb heroism of His calm indifference to threats and dangers. He will go hence, and relieve the tyrant’s dominions of His presence; but He is careful to make it plain that His going has no connection with the futile threatenings by which they have sought to terrify Him. ‘Nevertheless’-although I do not care at all for them or for him-’nevertheless I must journey to-day and tomorrow! But that is not because I fear death, but because I am going to My death; for the prophet must die in Jerusalem.’ We are so accustomed to think of the ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ that we forget the ‘strong Son of God.’ If we were talking about a man merely, we should point to this calm, dignified answer as being an instance of heroism, but we do not feel that that word fits Him. There are too many vulgar associations connected with it, to be adapted to the gentleness of His fixed purpose that blenched not, nor faltered, whatsoever came in the way.
Light is far more powerful than lightning. Meekness may be, and in Him was, wedded to a will like a bar of iron, and a heart that knew not how to fear. If ever there was an iron hand in a velvet glove it was the hand of Christ. And although the perspective of virtues which Christianity has introduced, and which Christ exhibited in His life, gives prominence to the meek and the gentle, let us not forget that it also enjoins the cultivation of the ‘wrestling thews that throw the world.’ ‘Quit you like men; be strong; let all your deeds be done in charity.’
Then note, too, the solemn law that ruled His life. ‘I must walk.’ That is a very familiar expression upon His lips. From that early day when He said, ‘Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business,’ to that last when He said, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up,’ there crops out, ever and anon, in the occasional glimpses that He allows us to have of His inmost spirit, this reference of all His actions to a necessity that was laid upon Him, and to which He ever consciously conformed. That necessity determined what He calls so frequently ‘My time; My hour’; and influenced the trifles, as they are called, as well as the great crises, of His career. It was the Father’s will which made the Son’s must. Hence His unbroken communion and untroubled calm.
If we want to live near God, and if we want to have lives of peace amidst convulsions, we, too, must yield ourselves to that all encompassing sovereign necessity, which, like the great laws of the universe, shapes the planets and the suns in their courses and their stations; and holds together two grains of dust, or two motes that dance in the sunshine. To gravitation there is nothing great and nothing small. God’s must covers all the ground of our lives, and should ever be responded to by our ‘I will.’
And that brings me to the last point, and that is, our Lord’s glad acceptance of the necessity and surrender of the Cross. What was it that made Him willing to take that ‘must’ as the law of His life? First, a Son’s obedience; second, a Brother’s love. There was no point in Christ’s career, from the moment when in the desert He put away the temptation to win the kingdoms of the world by other than the God-appointed means, down to the last moment when on His dying ears there fell another form of the same temptation in the taunt, ‘Let Him come down from the cross, and we will believe on Him’; when He could not, if He had chosen to abandon His mission, have saved Himself. No compulsion, no outward hand impelling Him, drove Him along that course which ended on Calvary; but only that He would save others, and therefore ‘Himself He cannot save.’
True, there were natural human shrinkings, just as the weight and impetus of some tremendous billow buffeting the bows of the ship makes it quiver; but this never affected the firm hand on the rudder, and never deflected the vessel from its course. Christ’s ‘soul was troubled,’ but His will was fixed, and it was fixed by His love to us. Like one of the men who in after ages died for His dear sake, He may be conceived as refusing to be bound to the stake by any bands, willing to stand there and be destroyed because He wills. Nothing fastened Him to the Cross but His resolve to save the world, in which world was included each of us sitting listening and standing speaking, now. Oh, brethren! shall not we, moved by such love, with like cheerfulness of surrender, give ourselves to Him who gave Himself for us?
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 13:32 Go tell that fox: Among first-century Jews, foxes…
13:32 Go tell that fox: Among first-century Jews, foxes were viewed as destructive and worthless pests. • casting out demons and healing people: Jesus’ exorcisms and healings were evidence that God’s Kingdom was present; his resurrection on the third day would vindicate him and prove that he inaugurated God’s Kingdom.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.