Luke 10:25-28

4. The Conversation with the Scribe, and the Parable of the Samaritan: Luke 10:25-37.

Jesus slowly continues His journey, stopping at each locality. The most varied scenes follow one another without internal relation, and as circumstances bring them. Weizsäcker, starting from the assumption that this framework is not historical, has set himself to seek a systematic plan, and affects to find throughout an order according to subjects. Thus he would have the parable of the good Samaritan connected with the sending of the seventy by its object, which was originally to prove the right of the evangelists, to whatever nationality they might belong. But where in the parable is there to be found the least trace of correspondence between the work done by the good Samaritan, and the function of the evangelists in the apostolic church? How could the original tendency fail to come out at some point of the description? Holtzmann thinks that in what follows Luke conjoins two distinct accounts that of the scribe (Luke 10:25-28), which we find in Mark 12:28 and Matthew 22:35, and the parable of the good Samaritan taken from the Logia. The connection which our Gospel establishes between the two events (Luke 10:29) is nothing else than a rather unskilful combination on the part of Luke. But there is no proof that the scribe of Luke is the same as that spoken of by Mark and Matthew. It is at Jerusalem, and in the days which precede the passion, that this latter appears; and above all, as Meyer acknowledges, the matter of discussion is entirely different. The scribe of Jerusalem asks Jesus which is the greatest commandment. His is a theological question. That of Galilee, like the rich young man, desires Jesus to point out to him the means of salvation. His is a practical question. Was there but one Rabbin in Israel who could enter into discussion with Jesus on such subjects? It is possible, no doubt, that some external details belonging to one of those scenes got mixed up in tradition with the narrative of the other. But the moral contents form the essential matter, and they are too diverse to admit of being identified. As to the connection which Luke 10:29 establishes between the interview and the parable which follows, it is confirmed by the lesson which flows from the parable (Luke 10:36-37), and about the authenticity of which there is no doubt.

Vers. 25-28. The Work which saves.

In Greece the object of search is truth; in Israel it is salvation. So this same question is found again in the mouth of the rich young man.

The expression stood up shows that Jesus and the persons who surrounded Him were seated. Several critics think this “scenery” (Holtzmann) inconsistent with the idea of a journey, as if we had not to do here with a course of preaching, and as if Jesus must have been, during the weeks this journey lasts, constantly on His feet!

The test to which the scribe wished to subject Jesus bore either on His orthodoxy or on His theological ability. His question rests on the idea of the merit of works. Strictly, on having done what work shall I certainly inherit...? In the term to inherit there is an allusion to the possession of the land of Canaan, which the children of Israel had received as a heritage from the hand of God, and which to the Jewish mind continued to be the type of the Messianic blessedness. The question of Jesus distinguishes between the contents (τί) and the text (πῶς) of the law. It has been thought that, while saying, How readest thou? Jesus pointed to the phylactery attached to the scribe's dress, and on which passages of the law were written. But at Luke 10:28 we should find thou hast well read, instead of thou hast answered right. And it cannot be proved that those two passages were united on the phylacteries. The first alone appears to have figured on them.

It is not wonderful that the scribe instantly quotes the first part of the summary of the law, taken from Deuteronomy 6:5; for the Jews were required to repeat this sentence morning and evening. As to the second, taken from Leviticus 19:18, we may doubt whether he had the readiness of mind to join it immediately with the first, and so to compose this magnificent resumé of the substance of the law. In Mark 12 and Matthew 22 it is Jesus Himself who unites those two utterances. It is probable, as Bleek thinks, that Jesus guided the scribe by a few questions to formulate this answer. Luke 10:26 has all the appearance of the opening of a catechetical course.

The first part of the summary includes four terms; in Hebrew there are only three לֵב, H4213, heart; ‡ ֶנפֶשׁ, H5883, soul; מְאֹד, H4394, might. The LXX. also have only three, but they translate לֵב, H4213, heart, by διανοία, mind; and this is the word which appears in Luke as the fourth term. In Matthew there are three: διανοία is the last; in Mark, four: σύνεσις takes the place of διανοία, and is put second. Καρδία, the heart, in Mark and Luke is foremost; it is the most general term: it denotes in Scripture the central focus from which all the rays of the moral life go forth; and that in their three principal directions the powers of feeling, or the affections, ‡ ֶנפֶשׁ, H5883, the soul, in the sense of feeling; the active powers, the impulsive aspirations, מְאֹד, H4394, the might, the will; and the intellectual powers, analytical or contemplative, διανοία, mind. The difference between the heart, which resembles the trunk, and the three branches, feeling, will, and understanding, is emphatically marked, in the Alex. variation, by the substitution of the preposition ἐν, in, for ἐκ, with (from), in the three last members. Moral life proceeds from the heart, and manifests itself without, in the three forms of activity indicated. The impulse Godward proceeds from the heart, and is realized in the life through the affection, which feeds on that supreme object; through the will, which consecrates itself actively to the accomplishment of His will; and through the mind, which pursues the track of His thoughts, in all His works.

The second part of the summary is the corollary of the first, and cannot be realized except in connection with it. Nothing but the reigning love of God can so divest the individual of devotion to his own person, that the ego of his neighbour shall rank in his eyes exactly on the same level as his own. The pattern must be loved above all, if the image in others is to appear to us as worthy of esteem and love as in ourselves.

Thus to love is, as Jesus says, the path to life, or rather it is life itself. God has no higher life than that of love. The answer of Jesus is therefore not a simple accommodation to the legal point of view. The work which saves, or salvation, is really loving. The gospel does not differ from the law in its aim; it is distinguished from it only by its indication of means and the communication of strength.