'And He went through the cities and villages, teaching,
and journeying toward Jerusalem. 23. Then said one unto
Him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And He said
unto them, 24. Strive to enter in at the strait gate:
for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and
shall not he able. 25. When once the Master of the
house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye
begin to stand without, and to knock at the door,
saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and He shall answer
and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are:
26. Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk
in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets.
27. But He shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence
ye are; depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity.
28. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when
ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the
prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves
thrust out. 29. And they shall come from the east, and
from the west, and from the north, and from the south,
and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. 30. And,
behold, there are last which shall be first and there
are first which shall be last.'--LUKE xiii. 22-30
'Are there few that be saved?' The questioner's temper and motives
may be inferred from the tone of Christ's answer, which turns
attention from a mere piece of speculative curiosity to the grave
personal aspect of the condition of 'salvation,' and the possibility
of missing it. Whether few or many went in, there would be many left
out, and among these some of the listeners. Jesus speaks to 'them,'
the multitude, not to the questioner. The men who approach solemn
subjects lightly, and use them as material for raising profitless
questions for the sake of getting religious teachers in a corner,
exist still, and are best answered after Christ's manner.
Of course, the speaker meant by being 'saved' participation in
Messiah's kingdom, regarded in the carnal Jewish fashion; and our
Lord's reply is primarily directed to setting forth the condition of
entrance into that kingdom, as the Jew expected it to be manifested
on earth. But behind that immediate reference lies a solemn
unveiling of the conditions of salvation in its deepest meaning, and
of the danger of exclusion from it.
I. We note, first, the all-important exhortation with which Christ
seeks to sober a frivolous curiosity. In its primary application, the
'strait gate' may be taken to be the lowliness of the Messiah, and the
consequent sharp contrast of His kingdom with Jewish high-flown and
fleshly hopes. The passage to the promised royalty was not through a
great portal worthy of a palace, but by a narrow, low-browed wicket,
through which it took a man trouble to squeeze. For us, the narrow
gate is the self-abandonment and self-accusation which are
indispensable for entrance into salvation.
'The door of faith' is a narrow one; for it lets no self-righteousness,
no worldly glories, no dignities, through. Like the Emperor at Canossa,
we are kept outside till we strip ourselves of crowns and royal robes,
and stand clothed only in the hair-shirt of penitence. Like Milton's
rebel angels entering their council chamber, we must make ourselves
small to get in. We must creep on our knees, so low is the vault; we
must leave everything outside, so narrow is it. We must go in one by
one, as in the turnstiles at a place of entertainment. The door opens
into a palace, but it is too strait for any one who trusts to himself.
There must be effort in order to enter by it. For everything in our
old self-confident, self-centred nature is up in arms against the
conditions of entrance. We are not saved by effort, but we shall not
believe without effort. The main struggle of our whole lives should
be to cultivate self-humbling trust in Jesus Christ, and to 'fight
the good fight of faith.'
II. We note the reason for the exhortation. It is briefly given in
verse 24 (last clause), and both parts of the reason there are
expanded in the following verses. Effort is needed for entrance,
because many are shut out. The questioner would be no better for
knowing whether few would enter, but he and all need to burn in on
their minds that many will _not_.
Very solemnly significant is the difference between _striving_
and _seeking_. It is like the difference between wishing and
willing. There may be a seeking which has no real earnestness in it,
and is not sufficiently determined, to do what is needful in order
to find. Plenty of people would like to possess earthly good, but
cannot brace themselves to needful work and sacrifice. Plenty would
like to 'go to heaven,' as they understand the phrase, but cannot
screw themselves to the surrender of self and the world. Vagrant,
halfhearted seeking, such as one sees many examples of, will never
win anything, either in this world or in the other. We must strive,
and not only seek.
That is true, even if we do not look beyond time; but Jesus carries
our awed vision onwards to the end of the days, in the expansion of
his warning, which follows in verses 25-27. No doubt, the words had
a meaning for His hearers in reference to the Messianic kingdom, and
a fulfilment in the rejection of the nation. But we have to discern
in them a further and future significance.
Observe that the scene suggested differs from the similar parable of
the virgins waiting for their Lord, in that it does not describe a
wedding feast. Here it is a householder already in his house, and,
at the close of the day, locking up for the night. Some of his
servants have not returned in time, have not come in through the
narrow gate, which is now not only narrow, but closed by the
master's own hand. The translation of that is that, by a decisive
act of Christ's in the future, the time for entrance will he ended.
As in reference to each stage of life, specific opportunities are
given in it for securing specific results, and these can never be
recovered if the stage is past; so mortal life, as a whole, is the
time for entrance, and if it is not used for that purpose, entrance
is impossible. If the youth will not learn, the man will be
ignorant. If the sluggard will not plough because the weather is
cold, he will 'beg in harvest.' If we do not strive to enter at the
gate, it is vain to seek entrance when the Master's own hand has
barred it.
The language of our Lord here seems to shut us up to the conclusion
that life is the time in which we can gain our entrance. It is no
kindness to suggest that perhaps He does not shut the door quite
fast. We know, at all events, that it is wide open now.
The words put into the mouths of the excluded sufficiently define
their characters, and the reasons why they sought in vain. Why did
they want to be in? Because they wished to get out of the cold
darkness into the warm light of the bountiful house. But they
neither knew the conditions of entrance nor had they any desire
after the true blessings within. Their deficiencies are plainly
marked in their pleas for admission. At first, they simply ask for
entrance, as if thinking that to wish was to have. Then, when the
Householder says that He knows nothing about them, and cannot let
strangers in, they plead as their qualification that they had eaten
and drunk in His presence, and that He had taught in their streets.
In these words, the relations of Christ's contemporaries are
described, and their immediate application to them is plain.
Outward connection with Jesus gave no claim to share in His kingdom.
We have to learn the lesson which we who live amidst a widely
diffused, professing Christianity sadly need. No outward connection
with Christ, in Christian ordinances or profession, will avail to
establish a claim to have the door opened for us. A man may be a
most respectable and respected church-member, and have listened to
Christian teaching all his days, and have in life a vague wish to be
'saved,' and yet be hopelessly unfit to enter, and therefore
irremediably shut out.
The Householder's answer, in its severity and calmness, indicates
the inflexible impossibility of opening to such seekers. It puts
stress on two things--the absence of any vital relationship between
Him and them, and their moral character. He knows nothing about
them, and not to be known by the Master of the house is necessarily
to be shut out from His household. They are known of the Shepherd
who know Him and hear His voice. They who are not must stay in the
desert. Such mutual knowledge is the basis of all righteousness, and
righteousness is the essential condition of entrance.
These seekers are represented as still working iniquity. They had
not changed their moral nature. They wished to enter heaven, but
they still loved evil. How could they come in, even if the door had
been open? Let us learn that, while faith is the door, without
holiness no man shall see the Lord. The worker of iniquity has only
an outward relation to Jesus. Inwardly he is separated from Him,
and, at last, the outward relation will be adjusted to the inward,
and departure from Him will be inevitable, and that is ruin.
III. Boldly and searchingly personal as the preceding words had
been, the final turn of Christ's answer must have had a still
sharper and more distasteful edge. He had struck a blow at Jewish
trust in outward connection with Messiah as ensuring participation
in His kingdom. He now says that the Gentiles shall fill the vacant
places. Many Jews will be unable to enter, for all their seeking,
but still there will be many saved; for troops of hated Gentiles
shall come from every corner of the earth, and the sight of them
sitting beside the fathers of the nation, while Israel after the
flesh is shut out, will move the excluded to weeping--the token of
sorrow, which yet has in it no softening nor entrance-securing
effect, because it passes into 'gnashing of teeth,' the sign of
anger. Such sorrow worketh death.
Such fierce hatred, joined with stiff-necked obstinacy, has
characterised the Jew ever since Jerusalem fell. 'If God spared not
the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee.' Israel
was first, and has become last. The same causes which sent it from
the van to the rear have worked like effects in 'Christendom,' as
witness Asia Minor and the mosques into which Christian churches
have been turned.
These causes will produce like effects wherever they become
dominant. Any church and any individual Christian who trusts in
outward connection with Christ, and works iniquity, will sooner or
later fall into the rear, and if repentance and faith do not lead it
or him through the strait gate, will be among those 'last' who are
so far behind that they are shut out altogether. Let us 'be not
high-minded, but fear.'