{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"LUK","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Luke","commonName":"Luke","introduction":"THE writer of this Gospel is universally allowed to have been Lucas (an abbreviated form of Lucanus, as Silas of Silvanus), though he is not expressly named either in the Gospel or in the Acts. From Col 4:14 we learn that he was a \"physician\"; and by comparing that verse with Col 4:10-11 --in which the apostle enumerates all those of the circumcision who were then with him, but does not mention Luke, though he immediately afterwards sends a salutation from him--we gather that Luke was not a born Jew. Some have thought he was a freed-man (libertinus), as the Romans devolved the healing art on persons of this class and on their slaves, as an occupation beneath themselves. His intimate acquaintance with Jewish customs, and his facility in Hebraic Greek, seem to show that he was an early convert to the Jewish faith; and this is curiously confirmed by Act 21:27-29, where we find the Jews enraged at Paul's supposed introduction of Greeks into the temple, because they had seen \"Trophimus the Ephesian\" with him; and as we know that Luke was with Paul on that occasion, it would seem that they had taken him for a Jew, as they made no mention of him. On the other hand, his fluency in classical Greek confirms his Gentile origin. The time when he joined Paul's company is clearly indicated in the Acts by his changing (at Act 16:10) from the third person singular (\"he\") to the first person plural (\"we\"). From that time he hardly ever left the apostle till near the period of his martyrdom (Ti2 4:11). EUSEBIUS makes him a native of Antioch. If so, he would have every advantage for cultivating the literature of Greece and such medical knowledge as was then possessed. That he died a natural death is generally agreed among the ancients; GREGORY NAZIANZEN alone affirming that he died a martyr.\n\nThe time and place of the publication of his Gospel are alike uncertain. But we can approximate to it. It must at any rate have been issued before the Acts, for there the 'Gospel' is expressly referred to as the same author's \"former treatise\" (Act 1:1). Now the Book of the Acts was not published for two whole years after Paul's arrival as a prisoner at Rome, for it concludes with a reference to this period; but probably it was published soon after that, which would appear to have been early in the year 63. Before that time, then, we have reason to believe that the Gospel of Luke was in circulation, though the majority of critics make it later. If we date it somewhere between A.D. 50 and 60, we shall probably be near the truth; but nearer it we cannot with any certainty come. Conjectures as to the place of publication are too uncertain to be mentioned here.\n\nThat it was addressed, in the first instance, to Gentile readers, is beyond doubt. This is no more, as DAVIDSON remarks [Introduction to the New Testament, p. 186], than was to have been expected from the companion of an \"apostle of the Gentiles,\" who had witnessed marvellous changes in the condition of many heathens by the reception of the Gospel. But the explanations in his Gospel of things known to every Jew, and which could only be intended for Gentile readers, make this quite plain--see Luk 1:26; Luk 4:31; Luk 8:26; Luk 21:37; Luk 22:1; Luk 24:13. A number of other minute particulars, both of things inserted and of things omitted, confirm the conclusion that it was Gentiles whom this Evangelist had in the first instance in view.\n\nWe have already adverted to the classical style of Greek which this Evangelist writes--just what might have been expected from an educated Greek and travelled physician. But we have also observed that along with this he shows a wonderful flexibility of style, so much so, that when he comes to relate transactions wholly Jewish, where the speakers and actors and incidents are all Jewish, he writes in such Jewish Greek as one would do who had never been out of Palestine or mixed with any but Jews. In DA COSTA'S'S Four Witnesses will be found some traces of \"the beloved physician\" in this Gospel. But far more striking and important are the traces in it of his intimate connection with the apostle of the Gentiles. That one who was so long and so constantly in the society of that master mind has in such a work as this shown no traces of that connection, no stamp of that mind, is hardly to be believed. Writers of Introductions seem not to see it, and take no notice of it. But those who look into the interior of it will soon discover evidences enough in it of a Pauline cast of mind. Referring for a number of details to DA COSTA, we notice here only two examples: In Co1 11:23, Paul ascribes to an express revelation from Christ Himself the account of the Institution of the Lord's Supper which he there gives. Now, if we find this account differing in small yet striking particulars from the accounts given by Matthew and Mark, but agreeing to the letter with Luke's account, it can hardly admit of a doubt that the one had it from the other; and in that case, of course, it was Luke that had it from Paul. Now Matthew and Mark both say of the Cup, \"This is my blood of the New Testament\"; while Paul and Luke say, in identical terms, \"This cup is the New Testament in My blood\" (Co1 11:25; Luk 22:20). Further, Luke says, \"Likewise also the cup after supper, saying,\" &c.; while Paul says, \"After the same manner He took the cup when He had supped, saying,\" &c.; whereas neither Matthew nor Mark mention that this was after supper. But still more striking is another point of coincidence in this case. Matthew and Mark both say of the Bread merely this: \"Take, eat; this is My body\" (Mat 26:26; Mar 14:22); whereas Paul says, \"Take, eat, this is My body, which is broken for you\" (Co1 11:24), and Luke, \"This is My body, which is given for you\" (Luk 22:19). And while Paul adds the precious clause, \"This do in remembrance of Me,\" Luke does the same, in identical terms. How can one who reflects on this resist the conviction of a Pauline stamp in this Gospel? The other proof of this to which we ask the reader's attention is in the fact that Paul, in enumerating the parties by whom Christ was seen after His resurrection, begins, singularly enough, with Peter--\"And that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures and that He was seen of Cephas, then of the Twelve\" (Co1 15:4-5) --coupled with the remarkable fact, that Luke is the only one of the Evangelists who mentions that Christ appeared to Peter at all. When the disciples had returned from Emmaus to tell their brethren how the Lord had appeared to them in the way, and how He had made Himself known to them in the breaking of bread, they were met, as Luke relates, ere they had time to utter a word, with this wonderful piece of news, \"The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon\" (Luk 24:34).\n\nOther points connected with this Gospel will be adverted to in the Commentary. \n\n\n\nNext: Luke Chapter 1\n\n","order":42,"numberOfChapters":24,"sha256":"204b6ad5a3007ae03d59f0a3f250dc1a4fed154e78ef885292075f6de0b65757","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":24,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/24.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":24},"totalNumberOfVerses":596},"chapter":{"number":15,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["murmured, saying, &c.--took it ill, were scandalized at Him, and insinuated (on the principle that a man is known by the company he keeps) that He must have some secret sympathy with their character. But oh, what a truth of unspeakable preciousness do their lips, as on other occasions, unconsciously utter., Now follow three parables representing the sinner: (1) in his stupidity; (2) as all-unconscious of his lost condition; (3) knowingly and willingly estranged from God [BENGEL]. The first two set forth the seeking love of God; the last, His receiving love [TRENCH].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["I. THE LOST SHEEP. (Luk 15:3-7)\n\nOccurring again (Mat 18:12-14); but there to show how precious one of His sheep is to the Good Shepherd; here, to show that the shepherd, though the sheep stray never so widely, will seek it out, and when he hath found, will rejoice over it.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["leave the ninety and nine--bend all His attention and care, as it were, to the one object of recovering the lost sheep; not saying. \"It is but one; let it go; enough remain.\" \n\ngo after . . . until, &c.--pointing to all the diversified means which God sets in operation for recovering sinners.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["Rejoice with me, &c.--The principle here is, that one feels exuberant joy to be almost too much for himself to bear alone, and is positively relieved by having others to share it with him. (See on Luk 15:10).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["ninety-nine just . . . needing no repentance--not angels, whose place in these parables is very different from this; but those represented by the prodigal's well-behaved brother, who have \"served their Father\" many years and not at any time transgressed His commandment (in the outrageous sense of the prodigal). (See on Luk 15:29; Luk 15:31). In other words, such as have grown up from childhood in the fear of God and as the sheep of His pasture. Our Lord does not say \"the Pharisees and scribes\" were such; but as there was undoubtedly such a class, while \"the publicans and sinners\" were confessedly the strayed sheep and the prodigal children, He leaves them to fill up the place of the other class, if they could.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["II. THE LOST COIN. (Luk 15:8-10)\n\nsweep the house--\"not done without dust on man's part\" [BENGEL].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["Likewise--on the same principle. \n\njoy, &c.--Note carefully the language here--not \"joy on the part,\" but \"joy in the presence of the angels of God.\" True to the idea of the parables. The Great Shepherd. The Great Owner Himself, is He whose the joy properly is over His own recovered property; but so vast and exuberant is it (Zac 8:17), that as if He could not keep it to Himself, He \"calleth His friends and neighbors together\"--His whole celestial family--saying, \"Rejoice WITH ME, for I have found My sheep-My-piece,\" &c. In this sublime sense it is \"joy,\" before \"or in the presence of the angels\"; they only \"catch the flying joy,\" sharing it with Him! The application of this to the reception of those publicans and sinners that stood around our Lord is grand in the extreme: \"Ye turn from these lost ones with disdain, and because I do not the same, ye murmur at it: but a very different feeling is cherished in heaven. There, the recovery of even one such outcast is watched with interest and hailed with joy; nor are they left to come home of themselves or perish; for lo! even now the great Shepherd is going after His lost sheep, and the Owner is making diligent search for the lost property; and He is finding it, too, and bringing it back with joy, and all heaven is full of it.\" (Let the reader mark what sublime claims Himself our Lord covertly puts in here--as if in Him they beheld, all unknown to themselves, nothing less than heaven in the habiliments of earth, the Great Shepherd above, clothed in a garment of flesh, come \"to seek and to save that which was lost\")!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["III. THE PRODIGAL SON. (Luke 15:11-32)\n\nthe younger--as the more thoughtless. \n\nsaid, &c.--weary of restraint, panting for independence, unable longer to abide the check of a father's eye. This is man impatient of divine control, desiring to be independent of God, seeking to be his own master; that \"sin of sins, in which all subsequent sins are included as in their germ, for they are but the unfolding of this one\" [TRENCH]. \n\nhe divided, &c.--Thus \"God, when His service no longer appears a perfect freedom, and man promises himself something far better elsewhere, allows him to make the trial; and he shall discover, if need be by saddest proof, that to depart from Him is not to throw off the yoke, but to exchange a light yoke for a heavy one, and one gracious Master for a thousand imperious tyrants and lords\" [TRENCH].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["not many days--intoxicated with his new--found resources, and eager for the luxury of using them at Will. \n\na far country--beyond all danger of interference from home. \n\nwasted, &c.--So long as it lasted, the inward monitor (Isa 55:2) would be silenced (Isa 9:10; Isa 57:10; Amo 4:6-10). \n\nriotous living-- (Luk 15:30), \"with harlots.\" Ah! but this reaches farther than the sensualist; for \"in the deep symbolical language of Scripture fornication is the standing image of idolatry; they are in fact ever spoken of as one and the same sin, considered now in its fleshly, now in its spiritual aspect\" (Jer 3:1-15; Eze. 16:1-17:24) [TRENCH].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["when he had spent all . . . a mighty famine--a mysterious providence holding back the famine till he was in circumstances to feel it in all its rigor. Thus, like Jonah, whom the storm did not overtake till on the mighty deep at the mercy of the waves, does the sinner feel as if \"the stars in their courses were fighting against\" him (Jdg 5:20). \n\nin want--the first stage of his bitter experience, and preparation for a change.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["joined himself, &c.--his pride not yet humbled, unable to brook the shame of a return. \n\nto feed swine--glad to keep life anyhow, behold the son sank into a swineherd--among the Jews, on account of the prohibition of swine's flesh, emphatically vile! \"He who begins by using the world as a servant, to minister to his pleasure, ends by reversing the relationship\" [TRENCH].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["would fain have filled--rather, \"was fain to fill,\" ate greedily of the only food he could get. \n\nthe husks--\"the hulls of a leguminous plant which in the East is the food of cattle and swine, and often the nourishment of the poorest in times of distress\" [STIER]. \n\nno man gave . . . him--not this food, for that he had, but anything better (Jer 30:14). This was his lowest depth--perishing unpitied, alone in the world, and ready to disappear from it unmissed! But this is just the blessed turning-point; midnight before dawn of day (Ch2 12:8; Ch2 33:11-13; Jer 2:19).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["came to himself--Before, he had been \"beside himself\" (Ecc 9:3), in what sense will presently appear. \n\nHow many hired, &c.--What a testimony to the nature of the home he had left! But did he not know all this ere he departed and every day of his voluntary exile? He did, and he did not. His heart being wholly estranged from home and steeped in selfish gratification, his father's house never came within the range of his vision, or but as another name for bondage and gloom. Now empty, desolate, withered, perishing, home, with all its peace, plenty, freedom, dignity, starts into view, fills all his visions as a warm and living reality, and breaks his heart.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["I will arise and go to my FATHER--The change has come at last, and what a change!--couched in terms of such exquisite simplicity and power as if expressly framed for all heart-broken penitents. \n\nFather, &c.--Mark the term. Though \"no more worthy to be called his son,\" the prodigal sinner is taught to claim the defiled, but still existing relationship, asking not to be made a servant, but remaining a son to be made \"as a servant,\" willing to take the lowest place and do the meanest work. Ah! and is it come to this? Once it was, \"Any place rather than home.\" Now, \"Oh, that home! Could I but dare to hope that the door of it would not be closed against me, how gladly would I take any place and do any worK, happy only to be there at all.\" Well, that is conversion--nothing absolutely new, yet all new; old familiar things seen in a new light and for the first time as realities of overwhelming magnitude and power. How this is brought about the parable says not. (We have that abundantly elsewhere, Phi 2:13, &c.). Its one object is to paint the welcome home of the greatest sinners, when (no matter for the present how) they \"arise and go to their Father.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["a great way off--Oh yes, when but the face is turned homeward, though as yet far, far away, our Father recognizes His own child in us, and bounds to meet us--not saying, Let him come to Me and sue for pardon first, but Himself taking the first step. \n\nfell on his neck and kissed him--What! In all his filth? Yes. In all his rags? Yes. In all his haggard, shattered wretchedness? Yes. \"Our Father who art in heaven,\" is this Thy portraiture? It is even so (Jer 31:20). And because it is so, I wonder not that such incomparable teaching hath made the world new.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["Father, I have sinned, &c.--\"This confession is uttered after the kiss of reconciliation\" (Eze 16:63) [TRENCH].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["But the Father said, &c.--The son has not said all he purposed, not so much, because the father's demonstrations had rekindled the filial, and swallowed up all servile feeling [TRENCH] (on the word \"Father,\" see on Luk 15:18), but because the father's heart is made to appear too full to listen, at that moment, to more in this strain. \n\nthe best robe--Compare Zac 3:4-5, \"Take away the filthy garments from him; behold I have clothed thee with change of raiment; and they clothed him with garments\" (Isa 61:10; Rev 3:18). \n\na ring--(Compare Gen 41:42; Jam 2:2). \n\nshoes--Slaves went barefoot. Thus, we have here a threefold symbol of freedom and honor, restored, as the fruit of perfect reconciliation.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["the fatted calf--kept for festive occasions.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["my son--now twice his son. \n\ndead . . . lost--to me; to himself--to my service, my satisfaction; to his own dignity, peace, profit. \n\nalive again . . . found--to all these. \n\nmerry--(See on Luk 15:10).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["in the field--engaged in his father's business: compare Luk 15:29, \"These many years do I serve thee.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["came his father out, and entreated him--\"Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him\" (Psa 103:13). As it is the elder brother who now errs, so it is the same paternal compassion which had fallen on the neck of the younger that comes forth and pleads with the elder.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["these many years . . . neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment--The words are not to be pressed too far. He is merely contrasting his constancy of love and service with the conduct of his brother; just as Job, resenting the charge of hypocrisy by his friends, speaks as if nothing could be laid to his charge (Job 23:10-12), and David too (Psa 18:20-24). The father attests the truth of all he says. \n\nnever . . . a kid--I say not a calf, but not even a kid. \n\nthat I might make merry with my friends--Here lay his misapprehension. It was no entertainment for the gratification of the prodigal: it was a father's expression of the joy he felt at his recovery. \n\nthy son . . . thy living--How unworthy a reflection on the common father of both, for the one not only to disown the other, but fling him over upon his father, as if he should say, Take him, and have joy of him!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["Son, &c.--The father resents not the insult--how could he, after the largeness of heart which had kissed the returning prodigal? He calmly expostulates with him, \"Son, listen to reason. What need for special, exuberant joy over thee? Didst thou say, 'Lo, these many years do I serve thee?' In that saidst thou truly; but just for that reason do I not set the whole household a-rejoicing over thee. For thee is reserved what is higher still--a tranquil lifelong satisfaction in thee, as a true-hearted faithful son in thy father's house, nor of the inheritance reserved for thee is aught alienated by this festive and fitting joy over the once foolish but now wise and newly recovered one.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":32,"content":["It was meet--Was it possible he should simply take his long vacant place in the family without one special sign of wonder and delight at the change? Would that have been nature? But this being the meaning of the festivity, it would for that very reason be temporary. In time, the dutifulness of even the younger son would become the law and not the exception; he too at length might venture to say, \"Lo, these many years do I serve thee\"; and of him the father would say, \"Son, thou art ever with me.\" In that case, therefore, it would not be \"meet that they should make merry and be glad.\" The lessons are obvious, but how beautiful! (1) The deeper sunk and the longer estranged any sinner is, the more exuberant is the joy which his recovery occasions. (2) Such joy is not the portion of those whose whole lives have been spent in the service of their Father in heaven. (3) Instead of grudging the want of this, they should deem it the highest testimony to their lifelong fidelity, that something better is reserved for them--the deep, abiding complacency of their Father in heaven.\n\n\n\n\nNext: Luke Chapter 16\n\n"]}],"introduction":"PUBLICANS AND SINNERS WELCOMED BY CHRIST--THREE PARABLES TO EXPLAIN THIS. (Luke 15:1-32)\n\ndrew near . . . all the publicans and sinners, &c.--drawn around Him by the extraordinary adaptation of His teaching to their case, who, till He appeared--at least His forerunner--might well say, \"No man careth for my soul.\"\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/15.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":15},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/16.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":16},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/14.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":14},"numberOfVerses":24}