LUKE 13
The opening verses of this chapter show that all blessing must be on the basis of repentance. So when they spoke to Him of the Galileans slain by Pilate, the Lord said, “except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish”. It is the only ground on which we can come into accord with Christ; it is the ground of self-judgment. It is the only fruit God is looking for when failure has come in. He is not looking for good in men, but He is looking for the recognition of their badness; He says, If you will only recognise you are bad, I can do something with you. The thought in the minds of the Jews was that those who were killed were very bad men, but the Lord says, No, it is a warning to you; you will all perish like that if you do not repent. I have no doubt it had special application to the nation. They did not repent, and in the overthrow of Jerusalem over a million Jews perished; the streets were rivers of blood.
The fig tree (verses 6 - 9) represents Israel, who were given another opportunity of repentance. Israel were cursed because they did not yield any fruit of repentance. God would have blessed them to the full but repentance was not there. The natural man never judges himself and God has ceased to expect that he will, so He says, “Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever”. Nathaniel had judged himself; he had had everything out and the Lord had heard all he said under the fig-tree, and He could say, There is a man without any guile, who has made a clean breast of it all, and I know all about it. Jeremiah 24 speaks of good and bad figs: the good figs were the people who submitted to go into captivity because they deserved it; they judged themselves and accepted what they [p. 169] deserved. The bad figs were those who remained in Jerusalem and held on to their religious pretensions; so God cursed them. There is the principle again of self-judgment: God blessed those that judged themselves and cursed those who refused. Hezekiah had a boil that nearly caused his death, but a plaster of figs was put on and that recovered him. A boil represents a violent outbreak of the flesh, but under the blessed healing power of self-judgment there is recovery. This principle of repentance is of the utmost importance for all of us. If anything is wrong between two brothers or sisters it can only be healed on the principle of self-judgment. The question is, What have I done wrong? I have nothing to do with what the other has done. In every case of difference between brethren there is generally some wrong on both sides: there has seldom been a case where all is black on one side and all white on the other. If I begin to judge the little bit wrong on my side, it is much easier for the other party to judge himself.
Nineteen centuries have passed since the death of Jesus; it is the longest period there has been, and it is just about to close. It is pure mercy that we have not been taken away. The Lord has perhaps left us here because there may be something in our ways or spirits to which He is an adverse party, and He wants to give us opportunity to repent. He is saying to us, I want you to be in perfect harmony and agreement with Me.
The woman we read of in verses 10 - 14 would represent those in whom there was the fruit of repentance but who were not yet in the good of the intervention of God in Christ, and therefore in bondage to Satan. It is important to recognise the two classes: the unrepentant nation not availing themselves of the opportunity for repentance, not seeking to be reconciled to the adverse party; and the remnant who were bound down in the sense of their sinful condition. It is in principle like Romans 7. We see the use Satan would make of godly exercises. Satan had bound this woman, who was a believer, for she was a daughter of Abraham, one of the family of faith whom the Lord had come to lay hands on, but she was not in liberty. She did not know the great deliverance in Christ that God had brought in. Under the legal system even “the children” were subject to bondage. The children are recognised as a distinct class in Hebrews 2; the Lord did not take hold of angels but of the seed of Abraham. “Since therefore [p. 170] the children partake of blood and flesh, he also in like manner took part of the same, that through death he might annul him who has the might of death, that is the devil; and might set free all those who through fear of death through the whole of their life were subject to bondage”. That supposes persons marked by piety and the fear of God.
The thought of God is that His people should not be bowed down, but here is a daughter of Abraham so bowed down that she could see nothing but herself; she could not lift up her face to see the Lord. Souls in this condition always come under the Lord’s notice. He was anointed to preach to those bound; this woman had been bound for eighteen years, and God had noticed that here was one of the children who the whole of their life were subject to bondage. This woman was in bondage; it was not activity of sin. It is like Romans 7; there is delight in the law of God but no power. Then the Lord comes in as the anointed Deliverer; He puts His hands on her and looses her. That is His pleasure; the pleasure of Jehovah prospers in His hand. The Lord is well pleased to set souls free; if people go on in bondage for eighteen years they do not know the pleasure of God. God did not have these records penned by His servants as history; they are pictures of what the Lord lives to do now. If there is any element of bondage in my soul now, He is as near to me as He was to the woman, and He carries out the pleasure of God. It was not the pleasure of God that she should be bound.
The moral condition of the nation was set forth in the fig tree that bore no fruit, but this woman represents the remnant, the subject of divine working, the daughter of Abraham, part of the family of faith. Thousands now belong to the family of faith; there has been repentance and God has found a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, but Satan would like to keep them bound, occupied with themselves and not able to look up, like the one in Romans 7. As soon as we see the liberty in Another we can look up and say, “I thank God”. Two good chapters to read together are Romans 7 and Isaiah 53. Everyone who has read Isaiah 53 has noticed that all through it is He and His; it is just the contrast to the I and me of Romans 7. Another Person has come in and gone through death in order that He may take up the pleasure of God and give effect to it. Now the deliverance from bondage lies in getting away from I to Him
[p. 171] This woman had to wait for the Lord to come out as the anointed Deliverer; it would seem her bondage commenced when He was twelve years old. The Lord waited eighteen years from the moment when He expressed His intelligent relations with God, which He did when He stayed in Jerusalem and was with the doctors in the temple; but He waited for the anointing. It is wonderful to think of grace waiting for its opportunity, and weakness waiting for its deliverance, for eighteen years. The moment came when the Lord was anointed, set free for His work, and this was the time for the woman’s deliverance. According to the pleasure of God there is no waiting now. Perhaps many truly repentant souls never get life and liberty until their death-beds, but that is Satan’s work, not God’s. One might say this woman was made straight in Another. He laid His hands on her; He came into identification with her; it was this that liberated her. In figure we are all in the anointed Deliverer; deliverance is brought in and applied by the touch of His hands.
There was the speaking of Jesus as well as the touch. The speaking is like liberating ministry, but the touch is like the Spirit given. There is liberating ministry, the ministry of Christ as the anointed Preacher. Every one who fears God would listen to Christ and the setting faith of all that came in as the result of His sin-bearing. He knows all in the mind of God, and He went through all the suffering to make it good to us. Then the touch indicates the work of the Spirit; Christ touches souls now by the Spirit. Souls may listen to a most delivering ministry, but they do not get deliverance until they are prepared for it; no doubt this woman’s eighteen years were a process in which she was learning a good deal. She was one of “the children” and one of those who repented. There is necessity for repentance, whether we regard ourselves as sinners or as part of a ruined profession; but here we see the positive side, the making straight. Here we see Satan holding in bondage one who really had faith, yet was bowed together, not able to look up. The law made nothing perfect; it manifested imperfection, but the Lord came to replace it by perfection; He made her straight, so that she might glorify God. We see in Jesus God making Himself known in His thoughts of grace: He not only makes them known but gives effect to them. If God comes in for His people in all their sinfulness and weakness they have a new kind of power [p. 172] to lift up their hearts in joy and righteousness before His face. The Lord would bring out here the interest of God in His creature. Even man would take an interest in his ox or his ass and would care for it; if man is so interested in his creature surely God is entitled to be interested in His people, especially in those of the faith family. This brings out the gracious thoughts of God. The Lord was here to express them; He seems to say, Will you not let Me be as good as you are? He puts it that way, but it is terrible that He says “Hypocrites”. The religious man will not allow God to be as kind as he is himself. It is astonishing but true.
The sabbath was a blessed expression of the goodness of God, a day of rest and refreshment. It was made for man; we might have expected the Lord to say it was made for God. Religious man turned it into bondage, but the Lord gave it its true character by setting a daughter of Abraham in full liberty on the sabbath — she had never had a real sabbath before. “All who were opposed to him were ashamed; and all the crowd rejoiced at all the glorious things which were being done by him”. We are in a time of glorious things; we should not entertain any thought of anything else. The system we belong to subsists in glory; it is not only glory at the finish. Everyone thinks of glory at the end, but our system begins in glory, and there are glorious things all the time.
The real character of the kingdom of God is a system of glorious things; and that makes it so sad that it has become a great tree and a leavened mass (verse 21). The thought of this seemed to come into the Lord’s mind as a contrast. He was bringing in a glorious system, but He knew what it was going to work out to in His absence — a great tree and a leavened mass. So that in that connection it becomes us to strive earnestly to enter in — there is a narrow door and nothing goes through that door but Christ. It is just so far as we have acquired character from the system of glory that we can go through the narrow door; nothing else will go through. The Lord was looking at the public form which things would take; He would introduce the kingdom of God, but He would leave it to work out in man’s responsibility, and it would become something great which He never intended. There is a narrow door which will not admit anything of man after the flesh; nothing of the flesh can go through that door. It is a matter of earnest striving to go through, a serious business [p. 173] for us. The Lord is pointing out the seriousness and difficulty of the present situation. I knew a place where a preacher came for a long time, and after him another came and said, He has told you how easy it is to be saved, and now I have come to tell you how difficult it is to be saved. Both are true. If Christ is to be everything for us as righteousness before God, He must be everything down here. That necessitates a narrow door so that nothing of the flesh can get through. It is easy to be influenced by the great tree and the leavened mass. The tree is big because there is so much of man in the flesh there; and the mass is inflated because there is so much of the wickedness of man there. Do we understand that not a bit of that will do for God? If we want to be in the kingdom we must go through the narrow door. If Christ is all for righteousness He must be all for practical Christian life. That is the narrow door; nothing goes through but what pleases God. Then there will be no fear of finding a shut door.
The Lord spoke solemnly to people near Him, eating in His presence. They had not sought to get in at the narrow door; no one will ever seek to get in at the narrow door and not get in. But the door will be shut — people will want to get in to the public blessings of the kingdom, but they have neglected the narrow door. They would like to get in without ever facing the reproach of the kingdom. There is nothing about them that the Lord can recognise: they had been religious and in His company, near to Him, but He calls them workers of iniquity. They were going in for what was of the flesh in a religious way, and that is just what Christendom is doing now. Everything not Christ is iniquity, so the Lord says, I do not know you. There was nothing that the Lord could recognise as kindred with Himself. The Lord knows every repentant soul. He could not say to a repentant soul, I do not know you. The repentant sinner gives joy to heaven. It is the most elementary feature of the work of God; every repentant sinner is well known to heaven and to the Lord. And every bit of appreciation of Christ makes one to be well known to Him; He takes note of it.
The Lord called attention to the extended character of the kingdom of God: it was not at all to be a limited range of things, for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would be there, and people from east and west and from north and south, and would lie down at table in the kingdom of God. The thoughts [p. 174] of God are not narrow; but the word comes in a searching way, “Behold, there are last who shall be first, and there are first who shall be last”.
When the kingdom of God will be in display, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob will be seen in it, and a vast company from all quarters will be brought into the communion of grace. The kingdom of God is looked at as a place of repose and satisfaction, where people “lie down” — it would seem to be the communion of divine grace. The door is narrow for present entrance, but what is entered into is very extensive. The Lord had pointed the contrast between this and the public side, the mustard tree and the leavened meal of verse 21. Publicly the kingdom would be great and corrupted, so that now it necessitates that there should be a striving to enter the narrow door so as to come into the kingdom vitally. All the elements that make the mustard tree and the leavened mass have no place in the kingdom vitally though they get a place publicly. If we wish to be in the kingdom vitally we must be free from the elements that have made the tree great, and have leavened the meal. The Lord’s word? “the last shall be first”, may be that those last in the profession of Christianity are first in that which is vital. That is the great exercise of the present time; we should want to be last in what is great and corrupted by an evil influence. Those who are last in that will be first in the kingdom of God vitally.
It is easy to become self-centred and to lose sight of divine grace. The thought of God’s election is always introduced as an enlarging thought; in God’s election He secures many. What the company in verse 29 enjoy is common to all; they all lie down at table, and the one who enjoys most of the grace is first in the kingdom. It is not ability but enjoyment of grace that makes anyone first in the kingdom. None of us would come in but for election; God’s election secures a great company. It is always put that way in Scripture. God is pleased to secure a great company in His kingdom — Abraham, and in him all nations are blessed.
All this is very searching and exercising. No doubt the Pharisees felt the exercising character of it, and they tried to intimidate the Lord by telling Him Herod would kill Him, but their trying to frighten Him only brought out the stedfastness and undeviating character of His course. He would not be deflected from His course by Herod or anyone else. We [p. 175] see imperfections in the history of His servants but none in the Master Himself. He says, “Behold I cast out demons and accomplish cures today and tomorrow” — nothing would interfere with what He was doing — then the third day is resurrection. The Lord was moving on to the stability of resurrection, and then He would be perfected. He is perfected by going through death into resurrection; the faithful mercies of David are secured in a risen One. The third day is a hint of resurrection and that involves death, and so the Lord was perfected as the Vessel of grace; He would not have been perfected if He had not gone through death. All the grace expressed in the Lord as Man on earth came through death into resurrection. The whole system of divine grace is perfected in Him, so that there is no flaw in it. We belong to a system of perfection.
Verse 33 is a little different: “I must needs walk today and tomorrow and the day following”. There is nothing about the third day, it refers to the Lord’s walk here which went right on to death; He pursued His course to the very end, undeviated, undeflected. His face was set stedfastly to go up to Jerusalem; He must go there to complete His course and to suffer in Jerusalem just as all the prophets had suffered. His “path uncheered by earthly smiles led only to the cross”. He was to be rejected in the most highly favoured city on earth, and because it was the most highly favoured it was the most guilty. The Lord distinctly takes the place of Jehovah in this wonderful appeal: “How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen her brood under her wings, and ye would not”. It was Jehovah in the yearnings of His love over the city He had chosen; He had often been prepared to take them under the warmth and cherishing of His protecting love, but they would not. There is an exceeding dignity about this as He moves on. There is the thought of deliberation — “I must needs walk today and tomorrow and the day following”. He had a definite course and nothing would move Him. It behoved Him to suffer; He moves on in the greatest deliberation and purpose. It is good to have the eye fixed on Him.
Christendom is in much the same position now as Jerusalem was then; it was the city on earth where God’s favour had been known. One feels the solemnity of the Lord’s speaking thus for the last time to the city that would not have Him: “ye would not”. It is very much like the attitude He takes [p. 176] up in regard to Laodicea: He is standing at the door and is ready to come in in the yearnings of His faithful love, but He is outside. Jehovah had been sending His servants and prophets to Jerusalem, and last of all He came Himself in the Person of Jesus and showed His willingness to cherish them. His attitude was boundless grace spite of all they were, but now He says, “Your house is left unto you”, Him again until they said, They would not see “Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord”. Their house was left to them; the Lord was, as it were, saying to them, If you will not have Me I must leave you to find how empty everything is without Me. How empty everything is without Christ! If Jehovah is rejected, what value is there in His house? It is left to them; the Lord speaks of it as “your house”. The correspondence between the time when the Lord was on earth and today is remarkable; the Lord could address Christendom in the same way as He speaks here, at the end of a dispensation. We, too, are at the end of a period in which God is professedly honoured and the Lord is rejected. The Lord could say to us, Your house is left to you. What is Christianity without Christ?
In Laodicea Christ definitely refers to those who pride themselves on being Christians. We should be in the spirit of divine yearning over them; the Lord’s attitude to the seven assemblies is the model for ours. If He stands at the door and knocks it is our privilege to knock too, to do all we can, to be ready to call the attention of everyone to Christ. The prophetic voice of Christ is there even if men do not listen; the Lord has not ceased to speak in prophetic warning and in love. There is no more touching appeal in Scripture than this, the yearnings of the heart of the rejected Christ. Jerusalem having been the favoured place was the most guilty now; Jerusalem is the greatest expression of grace because the gospel started there. One would like to feel about everything as the Lord does, to be in the spirit of yearning over others.