The Ninth Sunday after Trinity is on August 14, 2022.

Readings for Year C can be found here.

The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):

Luke 12:49-56

12:49 “I came to bring Fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!

12:50 I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!

12:51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!

12:52 From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;

12:53 they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

12:54 He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens.

12:55 And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens.

12:56 You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

Luke 9 through Luke 19 are our Lord’s principal teaching chapters in his Gospel.

Luke 12 has hard-hitting lessons. On the Seventh Sunday after Trinity this year, we had the Parable of the Rich Fool. Last Sunday, we had our Lord’s warning that we know not the day nor the time of His Second Coming.

Today, we read of His telling us to reconcile with God through faith in His Son.

These are the intervening verses between last week’s Gospel reading and this week’s:

⁴¹ Peter asked, “Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?”

⁴² The Lord answered, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? ⁴³ It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. ⁴⁴ Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. ⁴⁵ But suppose the servant says to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk. ⁴⁶ The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.

⁴⁷ “The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. ⁴⁸ But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.

Many Christians today interpret the last part of verse 48 as one of giving money to the Church. It is often used during stewardship season when congregations are asked to pledge money for the following year.

However, Jesus meant it as saying that we will be punished in eternity depending on how much we turned away from Him and, by extension, from God.

Believers who have a good knowledge of Christianity then fall away from the faith will have the harshest punishment; they are the servants who know the Master’s will and do not obey it. Those who have little to no knowledge of Christ will receive a lighter punishment; they are the ignorant servants.

Matthew Henry’s commentary says:

The knowledge of our duty is an aggravation of our sin: That servant that knew his lord’s will, and yet did his own will, shall be beaten with many stripes. God will justly inflict more upon him for abusing the means of knowledge he afforded him, which others would have made a better use of, because it argues a great degree of wilfulness and contempt to sin against knowledge; of how much sorer punishment then shall they be thought worthy, besides the many stripes that their own consciences will give them! Son, remember. Here is a good reason for this added: To whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required, especially when it is committed as a trust he is to account for. Those have greater capacities of mind than others, more knowledge and learning, more acquaintance and converse with the scriptures, to them much is given, and their account will be accordingly.

Jesus then said that He came to bring fire to the earth and how He wished it were already kindled (verse 49).

Some commentators say He spoke of the Holy Spirit, but, as Henry explains, it is more likely He spoke of a fire of judgement for some and a refining fire of persecution for others:

By this some understand the preaching of the gospel, and the pouring out of the Spirit, holy fire; this Christ came to send with a commission to refine the world, to purge away its dross, to burn up its chaff, and it was already kindled. The gospel was begun to be preached; some prefaces there were to the pouring out of the Spirit. Christ baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire; this Spirit descended in fiery tongues. But, by what follows, it seems rather to be understood of the fire of persecution. Christ is not the Author of it, as it is the sin of the incendiaries, the persecutors; but he permits it, nay, he commissions it, as a refining fire for the trial of the persecuted. This fire was already kindled in the enmity of the carnal Jews to Christ and his followers. “What will I that it may presently be kindled? What thou doest, do quickly. If it be already kindled, what will I? Shall I wait the quenching of it? No, for it must fasten upon myself, and upon all, and glory will redound to God from it.”

John MacArthur has more. A fire of judgement is referred to often in the Old Testament:

Fire is a picture of judgment.  I mean it is pretty obviously that.  You have that in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament.  We’re familiar with statements like that.  “I am come,” He says, “from the Father.  I have come into the world to save but I’ve also come to judge.”  Fire is emphatic in the Greek.  The Greek reads this way, “For fire, I have come upon the earth.”  Fire is the first thing and this is prophesied in the Old Testament.  You know, there were statements about the Messiah’s coming that talked about fire and the Jews knew that.  Isaiah 66:15, Joel chapter 2, verse 30; there are number of places that promise fire and they all knew what that meant.  Amos is one that I might just remind you.  Amos 1, “So I sent fire on the wall of Gaza.  It’ll consume her citadels.”  And then it goes on to talk about the fire of God’s judgment all the way down to verse 14.  Chapter 2 of Amos further discusses this fire.  “I will send fire on Moab.  I’ll send fire on Judah.”  Malachi chapter 3, as the Old Testament closes, talks about God coming in fiery judgment, but the Jews believed that the fire would fall on the Gentiles and that the peace would come to them.  They never expected that the Messiah would come and the fire of judgment would fall on them and it is the fire of judgment.

Listen to John 9:39, “For judgment I came into this world that those who do not see may see and that those who see may become blind.”  That’s a very important verse.  “For judgment, I came into this world that those who do not see may see and that those who see may become blind.”  His judgment is two-way.  It is a judgment that saves and it is a judgment that condemns.  It’s two-sided.  If you go back to Luke chapter 3 for a moment, verse 9, we’ll look at a couple of verses there. Luke 9…Luke 3:9, he says for those who don’t believe, of course, in Israel, “the ax is laid at the root of the tree.  Every tree that doesn’t bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”  Verse 16, John the Baptist says, “The One who is coming is mightier than I.  I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire and He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”  So there’s the fire of judgment, the fire of destruction that is unleashed.

But it’s not only a fire of judgment; it’s also a fire of purging.  You see, the gospel is that fire that either purifies or punishes and Paul said it’s life to life or death to death.  In John 3, Jesus said, “If you believe, you have eternal life.  If you don’t believe, your unbelief puts you under judgment.”  Fire consumes what is combustible and does not consume what is noncombustible.  It purifies the noncombustible and it destroys the combustible and so the coming of Jesus is a fire.  It’s a fire cast to the earth.  To those who believe, it purifies.  To those who reject, it consumes.  And so Jesus is saying, “Look, I’ve come as fire,” and then He adds this most interesting statement, “and how I wish it were already kindled.”  He came for fire but the fire’s not started yet.  The fire hasn’t been kindled yet.  What does He mean by that?  Well, He’s talking about starting the fire.  Kindling is used to start the fire and that’s the intent of the language.  What is He saying?  “It has not been kindled.”  What’s the kindling?  What’s going to kindle the fire?  This is an amazing statement.  “I wish it were already kindled.”  What’s He looking at?  He’s looking at His death, because in the next verse, He calls it a baptism that He has to undergo.  The kindling that started the fire, the gospel fire that both purifies and punishes — the kindling was Jesus.  He was judged by God.  Before He judges, He must Himself be judged.  He’s looking at His cross.  It’s an amazing statement.  The kindling of the fire of judgment is the cross, His death, which is a fire of judgment that God puts on Him.  God literally consumes Him in wrath, the just for the unjust, and He’s punished for our sins and He says here, look at this, “How I wish it were already kindled.”  He wishes it were over.

He spoke of His impending death as a baptism and the stress He was under knowing it was coming (verse 50).

Baptism in the Greek sense meant full immersion into something.

Henry tells us that Jesus said that to emphasise how much He wanted to bring us the salvific benefits of His death on the Cross:

See here, (1.) Christ’s foresight of his sufferings; he knew what he was to undergo, and the necessity of undergoing it: I am to be baptized with a baptism. He calls his sufferings by a name that mitigates them; it is a baptism, not a deluge; I must be dipped in them, not drowned in them; and by a name that sanctifies them, for baptism is a name that sanctifies them, for baptism is a sacred rite. Christ in his sufferings devoted himself to his Father’s honour, and consecrated himself a priest for evermore, Heb 7 27, 28. (2.) Christ’s forwardness to his sufferings: How am I straitened till it be accomplished! He longed for the time when he should suffer and die, having an eye to the glorious issue of his sufferings. It is an allusion to a woman in travail, that is pained to be delivered, and welcomes her pains, because they hasten the birth of the child, and wishes them sharp and strong, that the work may be cut short. Christ’s sufferings were the travail of his soul, which he cheerfully underwent, in hope that he should by them see his seed, Isa 53 10, 11. So much was his heart set upon the redemption and salvation of man.

MacArthur says:

… “I have a baptism to undergo,” and again He says, “How distressed I am until it’s accomplished.”  A “baptism” was a word the Greeks liked to use to speak about being immersed in something and we use it that way.  It is used in Greek literature to refer to death but Jesus used it as being immersed in pain, immersed in suffering, immersed in judgment, divine wrath, immersed in death.  He knows that’s a baptism that He must undergo.  He understands that this is necessary because He must bear the judgment for all who will believe.

He refers to it the same way in the 38th verse of Mark 10 where He says to the sons of Zebedee, “Can you be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”  You want prominence in the kingdom.  Can you suffer what I’m going to suffer?  I have a baptism to undergo.  I have an immersion into divine wrath and how distressed I am until it’s accomplished.  The word “distressed,” synechomai.  The verb simply means to seize.  I’m seized.  It’s used for being gripped with fear.  It’s used for being pressed.  It’s used…Paul…Philippians 1:23, I think it is, being hard-pressed from two directions.  It was a…It was an incessant squeezing, just a relentless pressure, until it was finally accomplished. And He uses the word teleō, tetelestai, “until it’s finished,” and, of course, at the end of the cross, He said, “Tetelestai,” same verb, different form, “It is finished,” John 19:30.

So here He’s saying, “I…I wish it was over.”  Our Lord here is anticipating the dividing event.  He is pressed between the suffering and the purpose, between the anticipation of the pain and the plan, between His own will and the Father’s will, but He never wavered when He said in the garden, “Father, if it’s your will, let this cup pass from Me.”  He immediately responded by saying, “Nevertheless, not My will but yours be done.”  “I’ve come to cast fire,” He said, “and it’s going to be kindled by the cross and that’s going to set the fire of judgment.”  That will be the dividing point.  That is where all men are divided.  All men are divided at the cross, both in eternity and in time.

Then He asked the crowd if He was going to bring peace to the earth and said that He was going to bring division (verse 51).

MacArthur puts these verses into context for us:

Now let me just give you a little bit of background in the chapter that we’re in.  If you go back to chapter 12, verse 1, it tells us that Jesus was speaking to many thousands of people, probably tens of thousands of people.  So many people were gathered together they were stepping on each other.  The mass of these people, by the way, already had made up their mind to reject Jesus but He was still the greatest curiosity in existence and the most profound teacher who ever lived and attracted massive crowds, but most of them stood with their leaders.  They had imbibed what their leaders had been giving them to drink in terms of Jesus being satanic, but there were still some who could be classified as disciples.  The word is mathētēs and learners.  It simply means that they were still open to what He was saying.  Some of them were apostles.  They had come all the way to faith and been called to ministry.  Some of them were the seventy who also had been sent out to minister for Him because they were true believers.  Some of them had become believers and there were some who were just still open and the end of verse 1 says He was really talking to them.

And the nature of this message is that it’s a call to salvation.  It’s a call to come to Him, to come into the kingdom of salvation, to receive the forgiveness and redemption that He brings.  This is an evangelistic invitation.  It starts in verse 1 and it runs all the way to verse 9 in chapter 13.  There are a couple of interruptions for questions but, in the main, it’s one long discourse.  It is an invitation.  It is a call by our Lord to the crowd and those in the crowd who were still open and still learning and still listening to receive His claims, embrace Him as Messiah, and come into the kingdom of salvation and receive forgiveness of sin and eternal life; and then He delineates what they must do.

MacArthur tells us what Jesus meant about bringing division rather than peace in verse 51:

That’s a mashal.  That’s a paradoxical statement.  “Do you suppose?” is a verb that could be translated “Do you presume?” or “Does it seem right to say?”  That’s the implication of that verb.  It’s sensible for you to assume that I’m bringing peace, right?  Of course, absolutely, based upon all of those Old Testament promises, and His response in the Greek starts with the word “no”, ouchhi, an emphatic “No, I tell you, but rather division,” pretty devastating statement.  The promised peace was taken away.  They had rejected the Prince of Peace.  They had therefore forfeited the kingdom of peace.  It could only come through individuals putting faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as Messiah Savior and if there was no peace between the sinner and God, there would be no peace among the people.  There would be no kingdom of peace.  There will be no kingdom of peace until salvation comes to the heart, so in place of peace comes division.  In Matthew chapter 10 verses 34-36 you have a comparative passage to this where Jesus said the same thing.  Only on that occasion, He said He came not to bring peace but a sword.  Jesus, who came as the Prince of Peace, becomes the great divider, becomes the source of disunity and separation.

Nearer to the time of His death, Jesus referred to the destruction of the temple as He wept over Jerusalem:

… as Jesus approaches Jerusalem headed for the cross, He saw the city and He wept over it saying, and here’s the key, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace.” You missed it! “But now they’ve been hidden from your eyes.” Boy! That is one serious condition. When peace is offered and you reject it and then it’s not offered.

… what He’s talking about there is the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were massacred. Eventually, nearly 1,000 towns in Israel were sacked by the Romans. The temple was destroyed. It was the end of Judaism. There’s never been a sacrifice offered since then. They thought He was bringing peace. No, as it turned out, because they rejected Him as the Prince of Peace, He brought destruction … I brought you peace and you didn’t want it on My terms. So the warnings escalate and they escalate until finally, it’s now hidden. There is a time. There is an opportunity, but God has the right to shut it down whenever He wants, as He did in history, as He does in the life of every individual who rejects that warning.

Jesus emphasised how strong the division would be with regard to faith. He used the example of a family setting rather than, say, a village. He made His message hit home, as it were.

He said that, from now on, a household of five would be divided: three against two and two against three (verse 52), elaborating on the division among family members, especially the women (verse 53).

MacArthur analyses the verses for us, pointing out how relevant they still are today:

Verse 52, “For from now on…”  I want to stop you right there.  That’s another little sort of phrase that Jesus liked to use.  He used it back in chapter 5 verse 10 when He said to James, John and Andrew or James, John and Peter. He said, “From now on, you will be fishers of men.”  “From now on” sort of signifies the way it’s going to be in the future, from now on.  Luke 22:69, Jesus, anticipating His ascension, said, “From now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of God in heaven.”  From now on. “From now on,” He says, “this is how it’s going to be.”  Throughout life here, five members in one household will be divided, three against two, two against three.  They will be divided father against son, son against father, mother against daughter, daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.  We know… We know that the gospel divides, don’t we?  We just saw that.  At the cross, it divides.  It divides in eternity but I’ll tell you also that backs into time and the gospel of Jesus Christ is very divisive even here and now.

John 7 says, “And there arose a division in the crowd because of Him.”  John 9 verse 16, “There was a division among them.”  John 10, “There arose a division again among the Jews.”  He divided everywhere He went.  Not just in eternity are these people divided, but in time they are divided.  The gospel is a serious problem to people who reject it and those who believe it are outcasts.  In the time of Jesus, they were un-synagogued.  They were thrown out of the synagogue, social outcasts, and it goes all the way down to the most intimate point of human unity, the family.  Jesus could have illustrated it by talking about a town or a community or a neighborhood, but He takes it all the way down to the place where the most natural kind of unity exists and says, “This thing is going to be so divisive it’s going to turn a family against itself, three against two or two against three,” depending on how many Christians in the family and that’s hypothetical.  It might be one against four or four against one.  The gospel is divisive.

The family division is a chilling one, especially because many families lived together in that era but also because there was a similar filial division in the Old Testament. Jesus was citing Micah:

Now you notice in verse 52 there are five members in a household and then they are sorted out in 53: a father, a son, mother, daughter, mother-in-law, daughter-in-law. You say, “Wait a minute. That’s six.” You’re right. That’s six. But remember, the mother-in-law is also the mother of the son who has the wife, not that that’s a big issue but the Bible is very precise. The point is that there is going to be division in the family and sometimes that division can be so severe that it can end up even in death. Listen to the words of our Lord. These are somewhat frightening words when you think about it. Matthew chapter 10 verse 21, “Brother will deliver up brother to death, a father his child, children rise up against parents, cause them to be put to death. You will be hated by all on account of My name. Whenever they persecute you in this city, flee to the next,” pretty serious stuff. It goes on in the world; always has gone on. If you’ve been spared that, that’s a blessing, but Jesus said, “I came to bring a sword and that sword not only cuts into eternity but it comes into time.” I understand that.

I understand that the gospel that we believe, the gospel that I preach, cuts me off from people. I understand that it indicts them, that it condemns them by virtue of its message. It is divisive, really nothing new, by the way. The words of Jesus in verse 53, you might not have ever read this, but He borrowed from the prophet Micah because Micah said this very same thing in the 7th chapter and 6th verse, “For son treats father contemptuously. Daughter rises up against her mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies are the men of his own household.” So they would know that Jesus was speaking of something that was biblical. It was from the Old Testament.

Jesus then rebuked the crowd, telling them they were good at predicting the weather by looking at rain clouds (verse 54) and judging temperature by the way the wind blew (verse 55).

He called them hypocrites, saying they could interpret the appearance of the wind and the sky yet do not know how to interpret the present time (verse 56), by which He meant the purpose of His ministry among them.

MacArthur tells us that Jesus played on the fact that the Jews took pride in their powers of discernment, especially spiritual discernment:

This, of course, is down in…in Judea. These are warning words and warning sort of becomes the tone of Jesus’ ministry from now on in these remaining months before His death, but not just warning. It’s sort of an indicting warning. It’s a warning that the die is cast and it gets stronger and stronger as the months go on. The nation has made itself the all-time illustration of wasted opportunity and it’s not just Judas. It’s a whole nation of Judases and the consequences are monumental and forever. Here in these two illustrations, our Lord says, “You failed to discern two things, the time and the threat, the time and the threat.” And, of course, the Jews prided themselves on their discernment. They prided themselves on their spiritual insight but they failed with damning, deadly and eternal results to discern the time and the threat …

Jesus warned that the invitation to salvation through Him as their Messiah would soon be withdrawn:

… here in verse 54, He opens it up to the crowd and it stops being an invitation because they’ve already made up their mind and it becomes an indictment. It becomes a warning directed at them in their unbelief and from here on to the end of this discourse, chapter 13, verse 9; all of it has that same tone of indictment and judgment to fall. Essentially, up to verse 54, He is inviting Jews to believe. Here, He begins condemning unbelieving Jews and we can extend it beyond that because the Bible is intended for all generations. Up to this point, He has been inviting people to believe and now He condemns those who do not. And first of all, let’s look at illustration No. 1, which shows that they failed to discern the time. Verse 54, “When you see a cloud rising in the West, immediately you say a shower is coming and so it turns out.” Now that’s just a simple, unsophisticated way to tell the weather and, as I said, very much like an illustration Jesus used in Matthew 16 verses 1-4 …

… verse 56. Listen to this, “You hypocrites!” Now let me stop you there. You say, “What’s the connection? What does telling the weather have to do with hypocrisy?” Well, first of all, let me say that this was our Lord’s favorite term to describe the people of Israel. He called them hypocrites more than He called them anything else and not only the leaders but the people as well. If you just take your little concordance and bounce through, for example, the gospel of Matthew and see how many times He calls them hypocrites, you would be surprised. Well, you say, “I know they were hypocrites. Sure, because of their false religion.” That’s true. To be a hypocrite means to lie about what you really are, right? It means to deceive somebody about the truth and they were hypocrites because their piety was phony. Their spirituality was false. Their allegiance to God was a sham. Their…Their holiness was superficial. Their religion was external and their hearts were wicked and evil. Their whole religion was an hypocrisy. It was all phony, as all false religion is, all of it, because false religion can’t change the heart. Is that what Jesus meant? Well, that would be a little oblique, wouldn’t it? Why after telling two weather stories would you just make a blanket statement like, “You’re all a bunch of hypocrites” unless you had something more specific in mind.

Well, He does and He says what it is. Verse 56: “Here’s your hypocrisy. You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky. Why do you not analyze this present time?” What was their hypocrisy? Their hypocrisy was simply this: You see a cloud and you conclude rain. You feel a wind and you conclude heat. Minimal evidence and you draw a confident and accurate conclusion; and with all the evidence that I have shown you that I am God the Redeemer, the Messiah, the Savior, you reject Me. You hypocrites! You have more than enough. Their hypocrisy was in pretending not to have enough evidence and so they forever said to Jesus, “Show us a sign.” He says, “I’m not giving you any more signs except the sign of Jonah,” resurrection. You phonies!

At this point in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus had only six months more of ministry before He was crucified. The people and their leaders had ample evidence that He was their Messiah, yet they wanted more.

MacArthur describes the culmination in Luke 19, when Jesus wept over Jerusalem.

I posted about the destruction of Jerusalem above, but it bears repeating. Jesus tells us what true peace really is — reconciliation to God through faith in Him:

Look at Luke 19.  This is where it all gets kind of summed up.  Luke 19:41, He approached the city, saw it and wept.  And this is what He said, verse 42.  Listen to this statement.  “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace.”  If you had only known that I was offering you peace, if you had only known, but you refused.  “Now they have been hidden from your eyes.”  This is a judicial act on God’s part.  I gave you time.  I gave you opportunity.  It’s gone.  For the most part, for that nation, by now it was over.  And He pronounces the judgment, verse 43, “For the day shall come upon you when your enemies will throw up a bank before you, surround you, hem you in on every side, level you to the ground, and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another.”  That’s the destruction of Jerusalem, began in 66 A.D., finished up in 70 A.D. when the Romans besieged and finally sacked the city of Jerusalem, the horrific event that caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of the Jews, many who of course were hearing Jesus even then who were very young, still thirty years away from this occasion. But He says, “If you had only known…if you had only known.”  End of verse 44, “…but because you didn’t recognize the time of your visitation, now it’s hidden from your eyes.”  If only you had known.

Of course, tens of thousands of Jews converted to Christianity after the first Pentecost, but many more did not believe.

On a broader note, how can we evangelise unbelievers?

MacArthur recommends suggesting John’s Gospel as a starting point:

When somebody comes to me and says, “I don’t know if Jesus is really God,” do you know what I tell them to do? Read the gospels. Start with the Gospel of John because it’s written that you might know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and that you might believe, and believing, have life. That’s why it was written. That’s the record.

As for finding true peace, he says:

… at the Great White Throne Judgment of God, there are only unbelievers. No believers will ever be there because we’re not under any condemnation. Why? Because we put our trust in Christ. That’s how you settle with God. You put your trust in Christ, the one who bore the penalty for your sin and the justice of the court and the judge is satisfied. God is willing to reconcile. God is willing to reconcile. He’s a reconciling God.

May all reading this have a blessed Sunday.