Grace is the spring of the Christian's walk, and furnishes directions for
it. He cannot with impunity (chap. 17) despise the weak. He must not be
weary of pardoning his brother. If he have faith but as a grain of mustard
seed, the power of God is, so to speak, at his disposal. Nevertheless, when
he has done all, he has but done his duty (v. 5-10). The Lord then shews
(v. 11-37) the deliverance from Judaism, which He still recognised; and,
after that, its judgment. He was passing through Samaria and Galilee: ten
lepers come towards Him, entreating Him, from a distance, to heal them. He
sends them to the priests. This was, in fact, as much as to say, You are
clean. It would have been useless to have them pronounced unclean; and they
knew it. They take Christ's word, go away with this conviction, and are
immediately healed on their way. Nine of them, satisfied with reaping the
benefit of His power, pursue their journey to the priests, and remain Jews,
not coming out of the old sheepfold. Jesus, indeed, still acknowledged it;
but they only acknowledge Him so far as to profit by His presence, and
remain where they were. They saw nothing in His Person, nor in the power of
God in Him, to attract them. They remain Jews. But this poor stranger-the
tenth-recognises the good hand of God. He falls at the feet of Jesus,
giving Him glory. The Lord bids him depart in the liberty of faith-"Go thy
way; thy faith hath saved thee." He has no longer need to go to the
priests. He had found God and the source of blessing in Christ, and goes
away freed from the yoke which was soon to be judicially broken for all.
For the kingdom of God was among them. To those who could discern it, the
King was there in their midst. The kingdom did not come in such a manner as
to attract the attention of the world. It was there, so that the disciples
would soon desire to see one of those days which they had enjoyed during
the time of the Lord's presence on earth, but would not see it. He then
announces the pretensions of false Christs, the true having been rejected,
so that the people would be left a prey to the wiles of the enemy. His
disciples were not to follow them. In connection with Jerusalem they would
be exposed to these temptations, but they had the Lord's directions for
guidance through them.
Now the Son of man, in His day, would be like the lightning: but, before
that, He must suffer many things from the unbelieving Jews. The day would
be like that of Lot, and that of Noe: men would be at ease, following their
carnal occupations, like the world overtaken by the flood, and Sodom by the
fire from heaven. It will be the revelation of the Son of man-His public
revelation-sudden and vivid. This referred to Jerusalem. Being thus warned,
their concern was to escape the judgment of the Son of man which, at the
time of His coming, would fall upon the city that had rejected Him; for
this Son of man, whom they had disowned, would come again in His glory.
There must be no looking back; that would be to have the heart in the place
of judgment. Better lose all, life itself, rather than be associated with
that which was going to be judged. If they should escape and have their
lives spared through unfaithfulness, the judgment was the judgment of God;
He would know how to reach them in their bed, and to distinguish between
two that were in one bed, and between two women who ground the corn of the
household at the same mill.
This character of the judgment shews that it is not the destruction of
Jerusalem by Titus that is meant. It was the judgment of God that could
discern, take away, and spare. Neither is it the judgment of the dead, but
a judgment on earth: they are in bed, they are at the mill, they are on the
housetops and in the fields. Warned by the Lord, they were to forsake all,
and to care only for Him who came to judge. If they asked where this should
be-wherever the dead body lay, there would be the judgment that would come
down like a vulture, which they could not see, but from which the prey
would not escape.
