Luke 12:9

Luk_12:9

He that denieth Me before men

On denying Christ

I.

HOW MANY WAYS CHRIST AND HIS TRUTHS MAY BE DENIED; AND WHAT IS THE DENIAL HERE CHIEFLY INTENDED. Here, first, in general I assert that we may deny Him in all those acts that are capable of being morally good or evil; those are the proper scene in which we act our confessions or denials of Him. Accordingly, therefore, all ways of denying Christ I shall comprise under these three.

1. We may deny Him and His truths by an erroneous, heretical judgment.

2. We may deny Christ verbally and by oral expressions. Now our words are the interpreters of our hearts, the transcripts of the judgment, with some farther addition of good or evil. He that interprets, usually enlarges.

3. We may deny Christ in our actions and practice; and these speak much louder than our tongues. To have an orthodox belief and a true profession, concurring with a bad life, is only to deny Christ with a greater solemnity. Belief and profession will speak thee a Christian but very faintly, when thy conversation proclaims thee an infidel. Many, while they have preached Christ in their sermons, have read a lecture of atheism in their practice. As for the manner of our denying the deity of Christ here prohibited, I conceive it was by words and oral expressions verbally to deny and disacknowledge it. This I ground upon these reasons--

1. Because it was such a denial as was before men, and therefore consisted in open profession; for a denial in judgment and practice, as such, is not always before men.

2. Because it was such a denial or confession of Him as would appear in preaching; but this is managed in words and verbal profession. But now, if we take the words as they are, a general precept equally relating to all times and to all persons, though delivered only upon a particular occasion to the apostles (as I suppose they are to be understood), so I think they comprehend all the three ways mentioned of confessing or denying Christ, but principally in respect of practice, and that--

(1) Because by this He is most honoured or dishonoured.

(2) Because without this the other two cannot save.

(3) Because those who are ready enough to confess Him both in judgment and profession are for the most part very prone to deny Him shamefully in their doings. Pass we now to a second thing, viz., to show--

II. WHAT ARE THE CAUSES INDUCING MEN TO DENY CHRIST IN HIS TRUTHS. I shall propose three.

1. The seeming supposed absurdity of many truths. Upon this heresy always builds. The seeming paradoxes attending gospel truths cause men of weak, prejudiced intellectuals to deny them, and in them, Christ; being ashamed to own faith so much, as they think, to the disparagement of their reason.

2. The second thing causing men to deny the truths of Christ is their unprofitableness. And no wonder if here men forsake the truth and assert interest. To be pious is the way to be poor. Truth still gives its followers its own badge and livery, a despised nakedness.

3. Their apparent danger. To be resolute in a good cause is to bring upon ourselves the punishments due to a bad.

III. We proceed now to the third thing, which is to show HOW FAR A MAN MAY CONSULT HIS SAFETY IN TIME OF PERSECUTION WITHOUT DENYING CHRIST. This he may do two ways.

1. By withdrawing his person. Martyrdom is an heroic act of faith; an achievement beyond an ordinary pitch of it; to you, says the Spirit, it is given to suffer (Php_1:29). It is a peculiar additional gift; it is a distinguishing excellency of degree, not an essential consequent of its nature. Be ye harmless as doves, says Christ; and it is as natural to them to take flight upon danger, as to be innocent. Let every man thoroughly consult the temper of his faith, and weigh his courage with his fears, his weakness, and his resolutions together, and take the measure of both, and see which preponderates; and, if his spirit faints, if his heart misgives and melts at the very thoughts of the fire, let him fly, and secure his own soul, and Christs honour.

2. By concealing his judgment. A man sometimes is no more bound to speak than to destroy himself; and as nature abhors this, so religion does not command that. In the times of the primitive Church, when the Christians dwelt amongst heathens, it is reported of a certain maid, how she came from her fathers house to one of the tribunals of the Gentiles, and declared herself a Christian, spit in the judges face, and so provoked him to cause her to be executed. But will any say that this was to confess Christ or die a martyr? He that, uncalled for, uncompelled, comes and proclaims a persecuted truth for which he is surely to die, only dies a confessor to his own folly, and a sacrifice to his own rashness. Martyrdom is stamped such only by Gods command; and he that ventures upon it without a call must endure it without a reward. Christ will say, Who required this at your hands? His gospel does not dictate imprudence; no evangelical precept justles out that of a lawful self-preservation. He, therefore, that thus throws himself upon the sword, runs to heaven before he is sent for; where, though perhaps Christ may in mercy receive the man, yet He will be sure to disown the martyr.

IV. Having thus despatched the third thing, I proceed to show WHAT IT IS FOR CHRIST TO DENY US BEFORE HIS FATHER IN HEAVEN. Hitherto we have treated of mens carriage to Christ in this world; now we will describe His carriage to them in the other. These words clearly relate to the last judgment: and they are a summary description of His proceeding with men at that day. And here we will consider--

1. The action itself--He will deny them.

2. The circumstance of the action--He will deny them before His Father and the holy angels. (R. South, D. D.)

Some ways of denying Christ

1. We deny Christ when we advocate opinions which tend to lessen the authority of His religious teachings.

2. It is denying Christ to represent Him as a mere man. He Himself said, I and My Father are one. He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father. And He commended Thomas for addressing Him as my Lord and my God. How can any one affirm that He was only a man without the guilt of denying Him?

3. We may often deny Christ by silence. No doubt some well-meaning people at times do harm by introducing religion into conversation under unsuitable circumstances, or by harsh polemical replies to what some unbeliever has said. But most of us are in far greater danger of a culpable silence when Christs truth ought to be vindicated, and Christs own claim to reverence and trust ought to be earnestly and lovingly declared.

4. We may deny Christ by appearing at places and engaging in pursuits which irreligious people themselves recognize as unsuitable for an earnest Christian.

5. We deny Christ by neglecting efforts to spread the saving knowledge of Him at home and abroad. The Confederate general, Albert Sidney Johnston, in the last letter he wrote before he fell at Shiloh, said, The popular test of a military mans merit is success. It is a hard test, but it is the true one. We do not believe that success is always the true test of merit, but beyond question it is the popular test. Now, many irreligious people consider that Christianity is upon the whole a comparative failure. Large portions of the world it has never even nominally conquered. Some countries in which it once existed, including the Holy Land, have long been Mohammedan. And in the countries called Christian, a large proportion of the people are not really the subjects of Christs spiritual reign, The hasty observer is wrong in concluding that Christs work in the world is a failure; but must we not feel grief and shame at the thought that he has right plausible ground for such a conclusion? Just in proportion as we fail of any effort to spread Christs spiritual reign, we give men an excuse for rejecting His authority and neglecting His salvation. And thus to act is in a distressing manner to deny Christ.

6. In fact, a Christian is always and everywhere either confessing Christ or denying Him. Every wrong act performed, every duty disregarded or imperfectly discharged, every indication of a character not conformed to His will and likened to His image, is, by the very necessity of the case, a denial of our Lord and Saviour. (J. A. Broadus, D. D.)

Denial of Christ

Note here--

1. That not to confess Christ is, in His account, to deny Him and to be ashamed of Him.

2. That whosoever shall deny or be ashamed of Christ, either in His person, in His gospel, or in His members, for any fear or favour of man, shall with shame be disowned and eternally rejected by Him at the dreadful judgment of the great day. Christ may be denied three ways--doctrinally, by an erroneous and heretical judgment; verbally, by oral expressions; vitally, by a wicked and unholy life--but woe to the soul that denies Christ any of these ways. (W. Burkitt.)

David Straiton, the Scottish martyr

In the seventeenth century, David Straiton, a Scotchman, was one day in a solitary place Where the New Testament was being read. When the words of this verse sounded in his ears, he threw himself on his knees and said, For Thy mercys sake, Lord, let me never deny Thee or Thy truth for fear of death or corporeal pains. At his trial he firmly defended the truth, and not only died for it himself, but greatly cheered his fellow-martyr, Norman Gourlay.

Ashamed of Christ

What would the Queen think of her soldiers, if they should swear they were loyal and true, and were to say, Your Majesty, we prefer not to wear these regimentals, let us wear the dress of civilians! We are right honest men and upright, but do not care to stand in your ranks, acknowledged as your soldiers; we had rather slink into the enemys camp, and into your camps too, and not wear anything that would mark us as being your soldiers. Ah! some of you do the same with Christ. You are going to be secret Christians, are you, and slink into the devils camp and into Christs camp, but acknowledged by none? (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But he that denieth me before men,.... That is, that continues to deny Christ, and lives and dies a denier of him; for otherwise it is possible for a person to deny Jesus to be the Son of God, or the Messiah, and afterwards confess him, as a Pagan or Jew; and through temptation, a real Christian may be left for a while, in one shape or another, to deny him and his truths, and afterwards truly repent, and at last be saved, as Peter; but they that deny Christ publicly, and persist in it,

shall be denied before the angels of God: they will be denied by Christ as belonging to him; they will be denied admission into heaven; they will be covered with shame and confusion publicly; they will be sent into everlasting burnings, and be ever tormented with fire and brimstone, in the presence of the holy angels.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God. Splendid as would the recompense be to the faithful and the loyal, equally shameful would be the guerdon meted out to the cowardly and faint-hearted. Before the same glorious throng would the King detail the failure, through slavish fear, of those whom he had chosen for so royal a service. Such an announcement as this proclamation of glory and of shame before the holy angels, in which stupendous scene he, the poor Galilaean Rabbi, was to play the part of the Almighty Judge, could only have been made in the last weeks preceding his Passion. All reticence was then laid aside. Before friend and foe, in public and in private, in these last solemn weeks Jesus tore away the veil of reticence with which he had been pleased hitherto in great measure to shroud his lofty claims, and the Master now declared before all that he was the King of kings, the Lord alike of angels and of men. In the face of such an announcement, his prosecution by the priests and the Pharisee party for blasphemy naturally follows. He was either a daring impostor or. In the latter ease, to the poor Galilee Rabbi belonged the Name of names which no Jew dared to pronounce.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9. ἀπαρνηθήσεται ἐνώπιον τῶν ἀγγέλων. This expressive compound verb is used of Peter’s denial of Christ (22:34, 61; Mat 26:34, Mat 26:75, Mar 14:30, Mar 14:72). In Mt. we have ἀρνήσομαι κἀγὼ αὐτὸν ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ πατρός μου. Note that Lk. has his favourite ἐνώπιον for ἔμπροσθεν (see on 1:15), and that he has “the Angels of God” where Mt. has “My Father”: comp. 15:10.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.