Luke 6:46-49

Third part of the discourse: Luke 6:46-49. The Sanction.

Here we have the conclusion, and, so to speak, the peroration of the discourse. The Lord enjoins His disciples, for the sake of their own welfare, to put in practice the new principle of conduct which He has just laid down.

Ver. 46. “ And why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say. ”

This saying proves that Jesus was already recognised as Lord by a large part of this multitude, but that even then He would have been glad to find in many of those who saluted Him by this title a more scrupulous fidelity to the law of charity. This warning is connected, doubtless, with the preceding context, by this idea: “Do not be guilty, in the dispensation now commencing, of the same hypocrisy as the scribes and Pharisees have been guilty of in that which is coming to an end; they render homage to Jehovah, and, at the same time, perpetually transgress His law. Do not deal with my word in this way.” The same idea is found in Matthew, at the corresponding place in the Sermon on the Mount (Luke 7:21 et seq.), but under that abstract and sententious form already observed in the Beatitudes: “ Not every one that saith unto me: Lord, Lord,” etc. In this passage in Matthew, Jesus expressly claims to be the Messiah and Supreme Judge. The same idea is expressed in the Lord, Lord, of Luke.

Vers. 47-49. “ Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will show you to whom he is like: 48. He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it; for it was founded upon a rock. 49. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that, without a foundation, built a house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great. ”

The two evangelists coincide in this closing illustration. On the shelving lands which surround the Lake of Genesareth, there are some hills on which the rock is covered with only a thin layer of earth (γῆ, Luke) or sand (ἄμμος, Matthew). A prudent man digs through this moveable soil, digs deep down (ἔσκαψε καὶ ἐβάθυνε), even into the rock, upon and in which (ἐ/πί with the accusative) he lays the foundation.

Luke only mentions one cause of destruction, the waterspout (πλήμμυρα), that breaks on the summit of the mountain and creates the torrents which carry away the layer of earth and sand, and with it the building that is not founded on the rock. Matthew adds the hurricane (ἄνεμοι) that ordinarily accompanies these great atmospheric disturbances, and overthrows the building which the torrent undermines. Though the differences between these two descriptions in Matthew and Luke are for the most part insignificant, they are too numerous to suppose that both could have been taken from the same document.

To build on the earth, is to admit the Lord's will merely into the understanding, that most superficial and impersonal part of a man's self, while closing the conscience against Him, and withholding the acquiescence of the will, which is the really personal element within us. The trial of our spiritual building is brought about by temptation, persecution, and, last of all, by judgment. Its overthrow is accomplished by unbelief here below, and by condemnation from above.

The Alex. reading, because it had been well built (Luke 6:48), is to be preferred to that of the T. R., for it was founded on a rock, which is taken from Matthew.

A single lost soul is a great ruin in the eyes of God. Jesus, in closing His discourse, leaves His hearers under the impression of this solemn thought. Each of them, while listening to this last word, might think that he heard the crash of the falling edifice, and say within himself: This disaster will be mine if I prove hypocritical or inconsistent.

The Sermon on the Mount, therefore, as Weizsäcker has clearly seen, is: the inauguration of the new law. The order of the discourse, according to the two documents, is this: Jesus addresses His hearers as belonging to a class of people who, even according to the Old Testament, have the greatest need of heavenly compensations. Treating them as disciples, either because they were already attached to Him as such, or in their character as voluntary hearers, He regards this audience, brought together without previous preparation, as representing the new order of things, and promulgates before this new Israel the principle of the perfect láw. Then, substituting His disciples for the doctors of the ancient economy, He points out to them the sole condition on which they will be able to accomplish in the world the glorious work which He confides to them. Lastly, He urges them, in the name of all they hold most precious, to fulfil this condition by making their life agree with their profession, in order that, when tested by the judgment, they may not come to ruin. In what respect does this discourse lack unity and regular progression? How can Weizsäcker say that these precepts, in Luke, are for the most part thrown together, without connection, and detached from their natural context? It is in Matthew rather, as Weizsäcker, among others, acknowledges, that we find foreign elements interwoven with the tissue of the discourse; they are easily perceived, for they break the connection, and the association of ideas which has occasioned the interpolation is obvious. Thus: Luke 6:23-26, reconciliation (apropos of hatred and murder); Luke 6:29-30, a precept, which is found elsewhere in Matthew itself (Luke 18:8-9); Luke 6:31-32 (a passage which is found Luke 19:3-9); Luke 6:7-15, the Lord's Prayer, an evident interruption in His treatment of the three principal Pharisaic virtues (alms, Luke 6:2-4; prayer, Luke 6:5-6; fasting, Luke 6:16-18); Luke 6:24 (if not even 19) -34, a passage on providence (in connection with the avarice of the Pharisees); Luke 7:6-11; Luke 7:13-14, precepts, simply juxtaposited; Luke 7:15-20, a passage for which Luke 12:33-35 should be substituted; lastly, Luke 7:22-23, where allusion is made to facts which lie out of the horizon of that early period. It is remarkable that these passages, whose foreign character is proved by the context of Matthew, are the very passages that are found dispersed over different places in the Gospel of Luke, where their appropriateness is easily verified. The author of the first Gospel could not be blamed for this combination of heterogeneous elements within one and the same outline, unless his compilation of the discourse had been made from the first with an historical aim. But if we admit, as we are authorized by the testimony of Papias to admit, that this discourse belonged originally to a collection of discourses compiled with a didactic or liturgical aim, and that the author wanted to give a somewhat complete exposition of the new moral law proclaimed by Jesus, there is nothing more natural than this agglomerating process. It is evident that the author found, in this way, a means of producing in his readers, just as any other evangelist, the thrilling impression which the word of Jesus had made on the hearts of His hearers (Matthew 7:28-29).

The way in which these two versions stand related to each other, will not allow of their being deduced from a proto-Mark as a common source, according to Holtzmann and Weizsäcker. And besides, how, in this case, did it happen that this discourse was omitted in our canonical Mark? The species of logophobia which they attribute to him, in order to explain this fact, is incompatible with Mark 9:39-50; Mark 9:13.

A religious party has made a party-banner of this discourse. According to them, this discourse is a summary of the teaching of Jesus, who merely spiritualized the Mosaic law. But how are we to harmonize with this view the passages in which Jesus makes attachment to His person the very centre of the new righteousness (for my sake, Matthew 5:11; for the sake of the Son of man, Luke 6:22), and those in which He announces Himself as the Final and Supreme Judge (Matthew 7:21-23, comp. with Luke 6:46: Lord, Lord!)? The true view of the religious import of this discourse, is that which Gess has expressed in these well-weighed words: “The Sermon on the Mount describes that earnest piety which no one can cultivate without an increasing feeling of the need of redemption, by means of which the righteousness required by such piety may at last be realized” (p. 6).