Luke 17:10

“Even so you also, when you shall have done all the things that are commanded you,”

In the same way when the Apostles are carrying out all the commands given to them, they are to be the same.

“Say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done that which it was our duty to do.' ”

They are to say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done that which it was our duty to do.' Thereby they will be saved from the dangers of pride and arrogance (1 Timothy 3:16; 1 John 2:16), and of thinking of themselves more highly than they ought to think (Romans 12:3). By ‘unprofitable' is meant that they render a full service in accordance with their contract but do nothing above that which gives their master more than his due and thus merits extra reward.

Note how in the section chiasmus (above) this is paralleled with the story of the Pharisee who does think that he does his duty and is very proud of the fact, in contrast with the one who comes humbly seeking mercy, and is thereby justified (Luke 18:9).

One Grateful Ex-Leper and Nine Less Grateful Ones (Luke 17:11).

This story follows aptly after the previous one, for there the transplanting of the Kingly Rule of God among the nations was in mind, and here we have a multiplying of what occurred in the incident in Luke 5:12, the cleansing of skin-diseased persons who symbolise Israel in its sin, expanded by the inclusion of a Samaritan, ‘this stranger', to include the wider world. Already non-Jews are coming back to God and entering under the Kingly Rule of God! The transplantation of the Sycamine tree has begun.

Skin disease was held in horror by all, and skin diseased men and women were seen as to be avoided. In both Jewish and Samaritan Law they were expected to avoid human company, except for their own kind, and to call ‘unclean, unclean' so as to warn people to keep away from them (Leviticus 13:43). For in both Jewish and Samaritan Law skin disease rendered them permanently ritually unclean. They could neither live among men nor approach the Dwellingplace of God. And any who came in contact with them became ‘unclean' and unable to enter the Temple until they again became clean.

There are a number of indications in the Old Testament that Israel were seen as the equivalent of skin diseased persons. Isaiah could cry out, ‘We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags' (Isaiah 64:6), a typical picture of a skin diseased person (even though uncleanness through menstruation was primarily in mind there), and some have seen in the Servant of Isaiah 52:14; Isaiah 53:3 the picture of a skin diseased person as He bore the sin of others. Moreover the picture in Isaiah 1:5 of Israel as covered with festering sores could well have been that of a skin diseased person. And it was recognised that the worst fate that could befall a man who usurped the privileges of God's sanctuary was to be stricken with skin disease (2 Chronicles 16:16-21). Never again could he enter the Temple of the Lord. So like the skin diseased man, Israel were unclean before God (Haggai 2:14) (It is true that in Haggai it is by contact with death. But being permanently skin diseased was seen as a living death, so the thoughts are parallel). This was no doubt why Jesus saw such healings of skin diseased people as evidence of the presence of the Messiah (Luke 7:22). Thus a skin diseased man was a fit depiction of Israel's need and the world's need.

So when ten skin diseased men approach Jesus for healing, including one stranger, we may well see behind it the intention of depicting not only Israel, but the world in its need, a need which can only be healed by the Messiah (compare Luke 7:22). There may also be intended a reminder of the fact that a greater than Elisha was here. Elisha had enabled the healing of a skin diseased man (2 Kings 5), and he also a ‘stranger', although he had not done it by his word. Rather he had sent him to wash seven times in the Jordan. He had put him firmly in the hands of God, and God had healed him. And he, like the Samaritan here, had returned to give thanks. But here Jesus takes the healing on Himself. It is He Who heals them at a distance by His thought. The implication of this could be drawn by the reader.

We have become so used to healing miracles that probably not one reader stops in wonder at what happened here. Ten men whose lives were devastated by skin disease receive their lives back again, and all at a word from Jesus. His signs and wonders continue. And yet unquestionably in this section they are only mentioned because they have another lesson to teach. Here it is the widening of the success of the Kingly Rule of God, the importance of gratitude, and the centrality of faith.

Analysis.

a As they were on the way to Jerusalem, He was passing along the borders of Samaria and Galilee and as He entered into a certain village, there met him ten men who were skin diseased, who stood afar off (Luke 17:11).

b They lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us” (Luke 17:13).

c When He saw them, He said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And thus it happened that, as they went, they were cleansed (Luke 17:14).

d And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, with a loud voice glorifying God, and he fell on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks, and he was a Samaritan (Luke 17:15).

c And Jesus answering said, “Were not the ten cleansed? but where are the nine?” (Luke 17:17).

b “Were there none found who returned to give glory to God, save this stranger?” (Luke 17:18).

a And He said to him, “Arise, and go your way. Your faith has made you whole” (Luke 17:19).

Note that in ‘a' the men stood afar off an in the parallel the Samaritan is made whole by faith. In ‘b' all call for mercy, while in the parallel only one returns to give glory to God. In ‘c' all are cleansed, and in the parallel only one of those cleansed returns to give glory to God. And centrally in ‘d' we have the stranger who returns to give glory to God and offering his thanks to Jesus.