Luke 18:31-34

6. The Third Announcement of the Passion: Luke 18:31-34.

Vers. 31-34. Twice already Jesus had announced to His disciples His approaching sufferings (Luke 9:18 et seq., 43 et seq.); yet, as proved by the request of the two sons of Zebedee (Matthew 20:20; Mark 10:35), their hopes constantly turned towards an earthly kingdom. In renewing the announcement of His Passion, Jesus labours to abate the offence which this event will occasion, and even to convert it into a support for their faith, when at a later date they shall compare this catastrophe with the sayings by which He prepared them for it (John 13:19). Mark prefaces this third announcement by a remarkable introduction (Luke 10:32). Jesus walks before them on the road; they follow, astonished and alarmed. This picture reminds us of the expression, He set His face stedfastly (Luke 9:51), as well as of the sayings of the disciples and of Thomas (John 11:8; John 11:16). What substantial harmony under this diversity of form! In general, Luke does not quote prophecies; he does so here once for all, and, as it were, in the mass. The dative τῷ υἱῷ may be made dependent on γεγραμμένα, “written for the Son of man,” as the sketch of His course; or τελεσθήσεται, “shall be accomplished in respect to the Son of man,” in His person. The first construction is simpler. The form of the fut. passive used by Luke denotes passive abandonment to suffering more forcibly than the active futures used by Matthew and Mark. The kind of death is not indicated in Luke and Mark so positively as in Matthew (σταυρῶσαι); nevertheless the details in this third announcement are more precise and more dramatic than in the preceding. See at Luke 9:45. On Luke 18:34 Riggenbach justly observes: “Toward everything which is contrary to natural desire, there is produced in the heart a blindness which nothing but a miracle can heal.”

As Luke 18:34 has no parallel in the other two Syn., Holtzmann thinks that Luke makes this reflection a substitute for the account of the request preferred by Zebedee's sons, which is found here in the narratives of Matthew and Mark. But does not a perfectly similar reflection occur in the sequel of the second announcement of the Passion (Luke 9:45), where no such intention is admissible? It is difficult for those who regard Luke's Gospel as systematically hostile to the Twelve, to explain the omission of a fact so unfavourable to two of the leading apostles. Volkmar (Die Evangel. p. 501) has found the solution: Luke wishes to avoid offending the Judeo-Christian party, which he desires to gain over to Paulinism! So, artful in what he says, more artful in his silence, such is Luke in the estimate of this school of criticism!