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THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
EDITED BY THE REV.
SIR W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
_Editor of "The Expositor," etc._
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE
BY THE REV.
HENRY BURTON, M.A., D.D.
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
PUBLISHERS LONDON
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE GENESIS OF THE GOSPEL 1
CHAPTER II.
THE MUTE PRIEST 15
CHAPTER III.
THE GOSPEL PSALMS 29
CHAPTER IV.
THE VIRGIN MOTHER 47
CHAPTER V.
THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS 67
CHAPTER VI.
THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS 80
CHAPTER VII.
THE TEMPTATION 105
CHAPTER VIII.
THE GOSPEL OF THE JUBILEE 128
CHAPTER IX.
A SABBATH IN GALILEE 148
CHAPTER X.
THE CALLING OF THE FOUR 162
CHAPTER XI.
CONCERNING PRAYER 177
CHAPTER XII.
THE FAITH OF THE CENTURION 195
CHAPTER XIII.
THE ANOINTING OF THE FEET 209
CHAPTER XIV.
THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER 225
CHAPTER XV.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD 241
CHAPTER XVI.
THE MIRACLES OF HEALING 255
CHAPTER XVII.
THE MIRACLE OF THE LOAVES 269
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE TRANSFIGURATION 281
CHAPTER XIX.
THE GOOD SAMARITAN 294
CHAPTER XX.
THE TWO SISTERS 306
CHAPTER XXI.
LOST AND FOUND 317
CHAPTER XXII.
THE ETHICS OF THE GOSPEL 336
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE GOSPEL 352
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE WATCH IN GETHSEMANE 364
CHAPTER XXV.
THE PASSION 377
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE FIRST LORD'S DAY 400
CHAPTER I.
_THE GENESIS OF THE GOSPEL._
The four walls and the twelve gates of the Seer looked in different
directions, but together they guarded, and opened into, one City of God.
So the four Gospels look in different directions; each has its own
peculiar aspect and inscription; but together they lead towards, and
unveil, one Christ, "which is, and which was, and which is to come, the
Almighty." They are the successive quarterings of the one Light. We call
them "four" Gospels, though in reality they form but one, just as the
seven arches of colour weave one bow; and that there should be four, and
not three or five, was the purpose and design of the Mind which is above
all minds. There are "diversities of operations" even in making
Testaments, New or Old; but it is one Spirit who is "over all, and in
all;" and back of all diversity is a heavenly unity--a unity that is not
broken, but rather beautified, by the variety of its component parts.
Turning to the third Gospel, its opening sentences strike a key-note
unlike the tone of the other three. Matthew, the Levite Apostle,
schooled in the receipt of custom--where parleying and preambling were
not allowed--goes to his subject with sharp abruptness, beginning his
story with a "genesis," "the book of the generation of Jesus Christ."
Mark, too, and John, without staying for any prelude, proceed at once
to their portrayals of the Divine Life, each starting with the same
word "beginning"--though between the "beginning" of St. Mark and that of
St. John there is room for an eternity. St. Luke, on the other hand,
stays to give to his Gospel a somewhat lengthy preface, a kind of
vestibule, where we become acquainted with the presence and personality
of the verger, before passing within the temple proper.
It is true the Evangelist does not here inscribe his name; it is true
that after inserting these lines of explanation, he loses sight of
himself completely, with a "sublime repressing of himself" such as John
did not know; but that he here throws the shadow of himself upon the
page of Scripture, calling the attention of all people and ages to the
"me also," shows clearly that the personal element cannot be eliminated
from the question of inspiration. Light is the same in its nature; it
moves only in straight lines; it is governed by fixed laws; but in its
reflections it is infinitely varied, turning to purple, blue, or gold,
according to the nature of the medium and reflecting substance. And
what, indeed, is beauty, what the harmony of colours, but the visible
music as the same light plays upon the diverse keys? Exactly the same
law rules in inspiration. As the Divine Love needed an incarnation, an
enshrining in human flesh, that the Divine Word might be vocal, so the
Divine Light needs its incarnation too. Indeed, we can scarcely conceive
of any revelation of the Divine Mind but as coming through a human mind.
It needs the human element to analyze and to throw it forward, just as
the electric spark needs the dull carbon-point to make it visible.
Heaven and earth are here, as elsewhere, "threads of the same loom," and
if we take out one, even the earthly woof of the humanities, we leave
only a tangle; and if it is true of works of art that "to know them we
must know the man who produced them," it is equally important, if we
would know the Scripture, that we have some knowledge of the scribe. And
especially important is it here, for there are few books of Scripture on
which the writer's own personality is more deeply impressed than on the
Gospel of St. Luke. The "me also" is only legible in the third verse,
but we may read it, between the lines, through the whole Gospel.
Concerning the life of St. Luke the facts are few. It has been thought
by some that he was one of the "certain Greeks" who came to Jerusalem to
worship; while others, again, suppose him to be the nameless one of the
two Emmaus travellers. But both these suppositions are set aside by the
fact that the Evangelist carefully separates himself from those who were
"eye-witnesses," which he could not well have done had he taken part in
those closing scenes of the Lord's life, or had he been honoured with
that "infallible proof" of the Lord's resurrection. That he was a
Gentile is evident; his speech bewrayeth him; for he speaks with a
Grecian accent, while Greek idioms are sprinkled over his pages. Indeed,
St. Paul speaks of him as not being of the "circumcision" (Col. iv. 11,
14), and he himself, in Acts i. 19, speaks of the dwellers at Jerusalem,
and the Aceldama of "their" proper tongue. Tradition, with unanimous
voice, represents him as a native of Antioch, in Syria.
Responding to the Divine Voice that bids him "write," St. Luke brings to
the task new and special qualifications. Familiar with the Old Testament
Scriptures--at least in their Septuagint form, as his many quotations
show--intimately acquainted with the Hebrew faith and ritual, he yet
brings to his work a mind unwarped by its traditions. He knows nothing
of that narrowness of spirit that Hebraism unconsciously engendered,
with its insulation from the great outer world. His mount of vision was
not Mount Zion, but a new Pisgah, lying outside the sacred borders, and
showing him "all the kingdoms of the world," as the Divine thought of
humanity took possession of him. And not only so, we must remember that
his connection with Christianity has been mainly through St. Paul, who
was the Apostle of the "uncircumcision." For months, if not for years,
he has been his close companion, reading his innermost thoughts; and so
long and so close together have they been, their two hearts have learned
to beat in a perfect synchronism. Besides, we must not forget that the
Gentile question--their _status_ in the new kingdom, and the conditions
demanded of them--had been the burning question of the early Church, and
that it was at this same Antioch it had reached its height. It was at
Antioch the Apostle Peter had "dissembled," so soon forgetting the
lessons of the Cæsarean Pentecost, holding himself aloof from the
Gentile converts until Paul felt constrained to rebuke him publicly; and
it was to Antioch came the decree of the Jerusalem Council, that Magna
Charta which recognized and enfranchised manhood, giving the privileges
of the new kingdom to Gentiles, without imposing upon them the Judaic
anachronism of circumcision. We can therefore well understand the bent
of St. Luke's mind and the drift of his sympathies; and we may expect
that his pen--though it is a reed shaken with the breath of a higher
inspiration--will at the same time move in the direction of these
sympathies.
And it is exactly this--its "gentility," if we may be allowed to give a
new accent and a new meaning to an old word--that is a prominent feature
of the third Gospel. Not, however, that St. Luke decries Judaism, or
that he denies the "advantage" the Jews have; he cannot do this without
erasing Scripture and silencing history; but what he does is to lift up
the Son of man in front of their tabernacle of witness. He does not
level down Judaism; he levels up Christianity, letting humanity absorb
nationality. And so the Gospel of St. Luke is the Gospel of the world,
greeting "all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues" with its
"peace on earth." St. Matthew traces the genealogy of Christ back to
Abraham; St. Luke goes farther back, to the fountain-head, where all the
divergent streams meet and mingle, as he traces the descent to Adam, the
Son of God. Matthew shows us the "wise men," lost in Jerusalem, and
inquiring, "Where is He that is born King of the Jews?" But St. Luke
gives, instead, the "good tidings" to "all people;" and then he repeats
the angel song, which is the key-note of his Gospel, "Glory to God in
the highest, ... goodwill toward men." It is St. Luke only who records
the first discourse at Nazareth, showing how in ancient times, even, the
mercy of God flowed out towards a Gentile widow and a Gentile leper. St.
Luke alone mentions the mission of the Seventy, whose very number was a
prophecy of a world-wide Gospel, seventy being the recognized symbol of
the Gentile world, as twelve stood for the Hebrew people. St. Luke alone
gives us the parable of the Good Samaritan, showing that all the virtues
did not reside in Israel, but that there was more of humanity, and so
more of Divinity, in the compassionate Samaritan than in their priest
and Levite. St. Luke alone records the call of Zacchæus, the Gentile
publican, telling how Jesus cancelled their laws of heredity, passing
him up among the sons of Abraham. St. Luke alone gives us the twin
parables of the lost coin and the lost man, showing how Jesus had come
to seek and to save that which was lost, which was humanity, here, and
there, and everywhere. And so there breathes all through this Gospel a
catholic spirit, more pronounced than in the rest, a spirit whose rhythm
and deep meaning have been caught in the lines--
"There's a wideness in God's mercy,
Like the wideness of the sea."
The only other fact of the Evangelist's life we will here notice is that
of his profession; and we notice this simply because it enters as a
factor into his work, reappearing there frequently. He was a physician;
and from this fact some have supposed that he was a freedman, since many
of the Roman physicians were of that class. But this by no means
follows. All physicians were not freedmen; while the language and style
of St. Luke show him to be an educated man, one, too, who walked in the
upper classes of society. Where he speaks natively, as here in the
introduction, he uses a pure Greek, somewhat rounded and ornate, in
which there is a total absence of those rusticisms common in St. Mark.
That he followed his calling at Troas, where he first joined St. Paul,
is probable; but that he practised it on board one of the large
corn-ships of the Mediterranean is a pure conjecture, for which even his
nautical language affords no presumption; for one cannot be at sea for a
few weeks--especially with an observant eye and attentive ear, as St.
Luke's were--without falling naturally into nautical language. One's
speech soon tastes of salt.
The calling of a physician naturally develops certain powers of analysis
and synthesis. It is the art of putting things together. From the seen
or felt symptoms he traces out the unseen cause. Setting down the known
quantities, by processes of comparison or of elimination he finds the
unknown quantity, which is the disease, its nature and its seat. And so
on the pages of the third Gospel we frequently find the shadow of
the physician. It appears even in his brief preface; for as he sits down
with ample materials before him--on one side the first-hand testimony of
"eye-witnesses," and on the other the many and somewhat garbled
narratives of anonymous scribes--we see the physician-Evangelist
exercising a judicious selection, and thus compounding or distilling his
pure elixir. Then, too, a skilled and educated physician would find easy
access into the higher circles of society, his very calling furnishing
him with letters of introduction. And so, indeed, we find it. Our
physician dedicates his Gospel, and also the "Acts," to, not the "most
excellent," but the "most noble" Theophilus, giving to him the same
title that he afterwards gave to Felix and to Festus. Perhaps its
English equivalent would be "the honourable." At any rate it shows that
this Theophilus was no mere myth, a locution for any "friend of God,"
but that he was a person of rank and influence, possibly a Roman
governor. Then, too, St. Luke's mention of certain names omitted by the
other Evangelists, such as Chuza and Manaen, would suggest that probably
he had some personal acquaintance with the members of Herod's household.
Be this as it may, we recognize the "physician" in St. Luke's habits of
observation, his attention to detail, his fondness for grouping together
resemblances and contrasts, his fuller reference to miracles of healing,
and his psychological observations. We find in him a student of the
humanities. Even in his portrayal of the Christ it is the human side of
the Divine nature that he emphasizes; while all through his Gospel, his
thought of humanity, like a wide-reaching sky, overlooks and embraces
all such earthly distinctions as position, sex, or race.
With a somewhat high-sounding word "Forasmuch," which here makes its
solitary appearance in the pages of Scripture--a word, too, which, like
its English equivalent, is a treble compound--the Evangelist calls our
attention to his work, and states his reasons for undertaking it. It is
impossible for us to fix either the date or the place where this Gospel
was written, but probably it was some time between A.D. 58-60. Now, what
was the position of the Church at that date, thirty-five years after the
Crucifixion? The fiery tongues of Pentecost had flashed far and wide,
and from their heliogram even distant nations had read the message of
peace and love. Philip had witnessed the wonderful revival in "the (a)
city of Samaria." Antioch, Cæsarea, Damascus, Lystra, Philippi, Athens,
Rome--these names indicate, but do not attempt to measure, the wide and
ever-widening circle of light. In nearly every town of any size there is
the nucleus of a Church; while Apostles, Evangelists, and Christian
merchants are proclaiming the new kingdom and the new laws everywhere.
And since the visits of the Apostles would be necessarily brief, it
would only be a natural and general wish that some permanent record
should be made of their narratives and teaching. In other places, which
lay beyond the line of Apostles' travel, the story would reach them,
passed from mouth to mouth, with all the additions of rumour, and
exaggerations of Eastern loquacity. It is to these ephemeral Gospels the
Evangelist now refers; and distinguishing, as he does, the "many" from
the "eye-witnesses" and "ministers of the word," he shows that he does
not refer to the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark--which probably he
has not seen--for one was an Apostle, and both were "eye-witnesses."
There is no censure implied in these words, nor does the expression
"taken in hand" in itself imply failure; but evidently, to St. Luke's
mind, these manifold narratives were incomplete and unsatisfactory. They
contain some of the truth, but not all that the world should know. Some
are put together by unskilled hands, and some have more or less of fable
blended with them. They need sifting, winnowing, that the chaff may be
blown away, and the seed tares separated from the wheat. Such is the
physician's reason for now assuming the rôle of an Evangelist. The
"forasmuch," before being entered on the pages of his Scriptures, had
struck upon the Evangelist's soul, setting it vibrating like a bell, and
moving mind and hand alike in sympathy.
And so we see how, in ways simple and purely natural, Scripture grows.
St. Luke was not conscious of any special influence resting upon him. He
did not pose as an oracle or as the mouthpiece of an oracle, though he
was all that, and vastly more. He does not even know that he is doing
any great work; and who ever does? A generous, unselfish thought takes
possession of him. He will sacrifice leisure and ease, that he may throw
forward to others the light that has fallen upon his own heart and life.
He will be a truth-seeker, and a light-bearer for others. Here, then,
we see how a human mind falls into gear with the Divine mind, and human
thought gets into the rhythm and swing of the higher thought. Simply
natural, purely human are all his processes of reasoning, comparing, and
planning, and the whole Gospel is but the perfect bloom of this
seed-thought. But whence came this thought? That is the question. Did it
not grow out of these manifold narratives? and did not the narratives
themselves grow out of the wonderful Life, the Life which was itself but
a Divine Thought and Word incarnate? And so we cannot separate heaven
from earth, we cannot eliminate the Divine from even our little lives;
and though St. Luke did not recognize it as such--he was an ordinary
man, doing an ordinary thing--yet we, standing a few centuries back, and
seeing how the Church has hidden in her ark the omer of manna that he
gathered, to be carried on and down till time itself shall be no more,
we see another Apocalyptic vision, and we hear a Voice Divine that
commands him "write." When St. Luke wrote, "It seemed good to me also,"
he doubtless wrote the pronoun small; for it was the "me" of his
obscure, retiring self; but high above the human thought we see the
Divine purpose, and as we watch, the smaller "me" grows into the ME,
which is a shadow of the great I AM. And so while the "many" treatises,
those which were purely human, have passed out of sight, buried deep in
their unknown sepulchres, this Gospel has survived and become
immortal--immortal because God was behind it, and God was in it.
So in the mind of St. Luke the thought ripens into a purpose. Since
others "have taken in hand" to draw up a narrative concerning those
matters which have been "fulfilled among us," he himself will do the
same; for has he not a special fitness for the task, and peculiar
advantages? He has long been intimately associated with those who from
the very first were "eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word," the
chosen companion of one Apostle, and doubtless, owing to his visit to
Jerusalem and to his prolonged residence at Cæsarea, personally
acquainted with the rest. His shall not be a Gospel of surmise or of
rumour; it shall only contain the record of facts--facts which he
himself has investigated, and for the truth of which he gives his
guarantee. The clause "having traced the course of all things accurately
from the first"--which is a more exact rendering than that of the
Authorized Version, "having had perfect understanding of all things from
the very first"--shows us the keen, searching eye of the physician. He
looks into things. He distinguishes between the To seem and the To be,
the actual and the apparent. He takes nothing for granted, but proves
all things. He investigates his facts before he endorses them, sounding
them, as it were, and reading not only their outer voice, which may be
assumed, and so untrue, but with his stethoscope of patient research
listening for the unconscious voices that speak within, and so finding
out the reality. He himself is committed to nothing. He is not anxious
to make up a story. Himself a searcher after truth, his one concern is
to know, and then to tell, the truth, naturally, simply, with no
fictitious adornment or dressing up of his own. And having submitted the
facts of the Divine Life to a close scrutiny, and satisfied himself of
their absolute truth, and having thrown aside the many guesses and
fables which somehow have woven themselves around the wonderful Name,
he will write down, in historical order as far as may be, the story, so
that his friend Theophilus may know the "certainty of the things" in
which he has been "instructed," or orally catechized, as the word would
mean.
Where, then, it may be asked, is there room for inspiration? If the
genesis of the Gospel is so purely human, where is there room for the
touch of the Divine? Why should the Gospel of St. Luke be canonized,
incorporated into Holy Scripture, while the writings of others are
thrown back into an Apocrypha, or still farther back into oblivion? The
very questions will suggest an answer. That touch of the Divine which we
call inspiration is not always an equal touch. Now it is a pressure from
above that is overwhelming. The writer is carried out of himself, borne
up into regions where Sight and Reason in their loftiest flights cannot
come, as the prophet foretells events no human mind could foresee, much
less describe. In the case of St. Luke there was no need for this
abnormal pressure, or for these prophetic ecstasies. He was to record,
for the most part, facts of recent occurrence, facts that had been
witnessed, and could now be attested, by persons still living; and a
fact is a fact, whether it is inspired or no. Inspiration may record a
fact, while others are omitted, showing that this fact has a certain
value above others; but if it is true, inspiration itself cannot make it
more true. Nevertheless, there is the touch of the Divine even here.
What is the meaning of this new departure? for it is a new and a wide
departure. Why does not Thomas write a Gospel? or Philip, or Paul? Why
should the Evangelist-mantle be carried outside the bounds of the sacred
land, to be thrown around a Gentile, who cannot speak the sacred tongue
except with a foreign Shibboleth? Ah, we see here the movings of the
Holy Ghost! selecting the separate agents for the separate tasks, and
dividing to "every man severally as He will." And not only does the Holy
Spirit summon him to the work, He qualifies him for it, furnishing him
with materials, and guiding his mind as to what shall be omitted and
what retained. It is the same Spirit, who moved "holy men of old" to
speak and write the things of God, who now touches the mind and heart of
the four Evangelists, enabling them to give the four versions of the one
Story, in different language, and with sundry differences of detail, but
with no contradiction of thought, each being, in a sense, the complement
of the rest, the four quarters making one rounded and perfect whole.
Perhaps at first sight our subject may not seem to have any reference to
our smaller lives; for who of us can be Evangelists or Apostles, in the
highest meaning of the words? And yet it has, if we look into it, a very
practical bearing upon our lives, even the commonplace, every-day life.
Whence come our gifts? Who makes these gifts to differ? Who gives us the
differing taste and nature? for we are not consulted as to our nature
any more than as to our nativities. The fact is, our "human" is touched
by the Divine at every point. What are the chequered scenes of our lives
but the black or the white squares to which the Unseen Hand moves us at
will? Earth's problem is but Heaven's purpose. And are not we, too,
writing scriptures? putting God's thoughts into words and deeds, so that
men may read them and know them? Verily we are; and our writing is for
eternity. In the volume of our book are no omissions or erasures.
Listen, then, to the heavenly call. Be obedient to your heavenly vision.
Leave mind and heart open to the play of the Divine Spirit. Keep self
out of sight. Delight in God's will, and do it. So will you make your
lowlier life another Testament, written ever with Gospels and Epistles,
and closing at last with an Apocalypse.