Luke 18:31-34

Butler's Comments

SECTION 5

Mania Mania (Luke 18:31-34)

31 And taking the twelve, he said to them, Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written of the Son of man by the prophets will be accomplished. 32For he will be delivered to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon, 33they will scourge him and kill him, and on the third day he will rise. 34But they understood none of these things; this saying was hid from them, and they did not grasp what was said.

Luke 18:31-33 Confrontation: The Lord could see where this whole discussion of leaving all to follow Him and rewards was focusing. In the minds of the disciples it was being turned into a fantasy of position and power, Especially the statement Jesus made about judging the twelve tribes of Israel and sitting on twelve thrones, (Matthew 19:28). So Jesus predicted (for the third time, see Matthew 16:21-23; Matthew 17:22-23) plainly that he was going to Jerusalem and there would be crucified (see Matthew 20:17-19; Mark 10:32-34) and on the third day raised from the dead. He knew He must repeat and repeat this concept of the Messiah's mission and the nature of His kingdom or these worldly-minded disciples would never survive the shock. They must be confronted honestly and plainly so that when it comes to pass they will remember Jesus did not mislead them.

Jesus-' prophecy about His death and resurrection clearly demonstrates His supernatural knowledge. He knew ahead of time where He would die (Jerusalem). Had He been only a man He could never have been so specific. He knew ahead of His death how He would die (crucifixion, Matthew 20:19). Being a Jew and really having committed no crime against Rome, one would expect Jesus to meet death normally or, if executed by the Jews, by stoning. He knew prior to His death who would be involved (Jewish and Gentile rulers, Matthew 20:18-19). All His enemies would have to do to prove Him a false prophet was to not fulfill His predictionsbut they were fulfilled to the letter. Not only were Jesus-' predictions of His death fulfilled but the prophecies of the Old Testament made centuries and millenniums before were also fulfilled. The student should read in this connection Isaiah 52:13-15; Isaiah 53:1-12; Isaiah 50:4-9; Isaiah 49:1-7; Daniel 9:24-27; Psalms 22:1-31. When Jesus said to the disciples, ... everything that is written of the Son of man by the prophets will be accomplished.. He was trying to emphasize to them that the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah were not to be interpreted according to the popular Jewish rabbinical traditions. The tragedy was the apostles understood none of what He said. There was a reason for this.

Luke 18:34 Caprice: It wasn-'t because they could not understand. Jesus made His prediction plainly enough. There was nothing symbolic or figurative in His language. The Greek word sunekan is translated understood and means literally, bring or set together. They could not bring together what Jesus said and their own earthly concepts of the Messiah. They would not get it all together! The Greek word kekrummenon is translated hid and is the word from which we get the English word cryptic. It means concealed, hidden, secret. The word in Greek is in the perfect tense which means this crucified-Messiah concept had been misunderstood in the past and was continuing to be misunderstood. And why had they misunderstood it? Because they deliberately refused to accept the concept. Peter rebuked Jesus for stating this concept the first time He made the prediction (Matthew 16:22; Mark 8:33). The word grasp is the Greek word eginoskon and means to be taking in knowledge, to come to know. They did not understand Jesus because they were not taking in what He was saying. They deliberately refused to listen to what He was saying.

Why, now after the third plain prediction of His death, do they still refuse to accept it? The student must here turn to Matthew 20:20-28 and Mark 10:35-45. There the underlying reason for their refusal to grasp the true Messianic concept (even though it was predicted centuries before in the Prophets) is revealed. They were striving among themselves for political positions in what they thought was going to be an earthly kingdom. Two of them, James and John, sent their mother to request promotion to favored positions. Jesus sternly warned the disciples they were acting like heathen and it must not be so among them. Luke omits this incident but at the same time he is the only one who records the disciples arguing about the same thing in the Upper Room at the time of the Last Supper (cf. Luke 22:24-30).

The fact that the Messiah was to be crucified and suffer a humiliating death was perhaps the most crucial issue Jesus faced in His incarnation (other than His claim to be God in the flesh). We notice His own disciples, after more than three years of learning from Him, still conceived of His kingdom as an earthly one that would ultimately manifest itself in a human political structure. Furthermore, even after His death, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus had to be rebuked by Jesus and instructed again that their own Prophets had predicted the Messiah's humiliation. Paul wrote that the crucifixion of Christ was a stumbling-block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles (1 Corinthians 1:23). The unregenerated mind of man will not believe that he can be saved by a crucified Savior, because human pride refuses to accept the idea of vicarious atonement. For that reason God raised Jesus from the dead and verified historically and empirically that Jesus-' death was a vicarious atonement. The Jews never thought of their Messiah as one who would atone for their sins but one who would deliver them from their earthly bondage. They wanted political and economic deliverance, but they were really not interested in spiritual freedom (cf. John 8:31-39). And after two thousand years of gospel history the majority of the world is still interested only in political and economic deliverance.

Applebury's Comments

What Awaited Jesus at Jerusalem
Scripture

Luke 18:31-34 And he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all the things that are written through the prophets shall be accomplished unto the Son of man. 32 For he shall be delivered up unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and shamefully treated, and spit upon: 33 and they shall scourge and kill him: and the third day he shall rise again. 34 And they understood none of these things; and this saying was hid from them, and they perceived not the things that were said.

Comments

Behold we go up to Jerusalem.Jesus had already warned the apostles that He had to die at Jerusalem, but they were unable to fit the cross into their own views of His kingdom. As they neared the city, He again attempted to get them to understand what awaited Him there.

all the things that are written through the prophets.He was (1) to be delivered to the Gentiles, (2) mocked, (3) shamefully treated, (4) spit upon, (5) scourged, and (6) killed. On the third day, He would rise again.

they understood none of these things.They didn-'t understand because their view of the kingdom required Him to be on an earthly throne. Actually, it was not until the Day of Pentecost that they understood His death and resurrection. When they knew that He had sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, they understood what He had tried to tell them about His kingdom.