Luke 9:18

In these verses, we have Christ discoursing with his disciples about the great things that pertained to the kingdom of God; and one circumstance of this discourse is taken notice of here which we had not in the other evangelists - that Christ was alone praying, and his disciples with him, when he entered into this discourse, Luk 9:18. Observe, 1. Though Christ had much public work to do, yet he found some time to be alone in private, for converse with himself, with his Father, and with his disciples. 2. When Christ was alone he was praying. It is good for us to improve our solitude for devotion, that, when we are alone, we may not be alone, but may have the Father with us. 3. When Christ was alone, praying, his disciples were with him, to join with him in his prayer; so that this was a family-prayer. Housekeepers ought to pray with their households, parents with their children, masters with their servants, teachers and tutors with their scholars and pupils. 4. Christ prayed with them before he examined them, that they might be directed and encouraged to answer him, by his prayers for them. Those we give instructions to we should put up prayers for and with. He discourses with them,

I. Concerning himself; and enquires,

1. What the people said of him: Who say the people that I am? Christ knew better than they did, but would have his disciples made sensible, by the mistakes of others concerning him, how happy they were that were led into the knowledge of him and of the truth concerning him. We should take notice of the ignorance and errors of others, that we may be the more thankful to him who has manifested himself to us, and not unto the world, and may pity them, and do what we can to help them and to teach them better. They tell him what conjectures concerning him they had heard in their converse with the common people. Ministers would know better how to suit their instructions, reproofs, and counsels, to the case of ordinary people, if they did but converse more frequently and familiarly with them; they would then be the better able to say what is proper to rectify their notions, correct their irregularities, and remove their prejudices. The more conversant the physician is with his patient, the better he knows what to do for him. Some said that he was John Baptist, who was beheaded but the other day; others Elias, or one of the old prophets; any thing but what he was.

2. What they said of him. "Now see what an advantage you have by your discipleship; you know better." "So we do," saith Peter, "thanks be to our Master for it; we know that thou art the Christ of God, the Anointed of God, the Messiah promised." It is matter of unspeakable comfort to us that our Lord Jesus is God's anointed, for then he has unquestionable authority and ability for his undertaking; for his being anointed signifies his being both appointed to it and qualified for it. Now one would have expected that Christ should have charged his disciples, who were so fully apprized and assured of this truth, to publish it to every one they met with; but no, he strictly charged them to tell no man that thing as yet, because there is a time for all things. After his resurrection, which completed the proof of it, Peter made the temple ring of it, that God had made this same Jesus both Lord and Christ (Act 2:36); but as yet the evidence was not ready to be summed up, and therefore it must be concealed; while it was so, we may conclude that the belief of it was not necessary to salvation.

II. Concerning his own sufferings and death, of which he had yet said little. Now that his disciples were well established in the belief of his being the Christ, and able to bear it, he speaks of them expressly, and with great assurance, Luk 9:22. It comes in as a reason why they must not yet preach that he was the Christ, because the wonders that would attend his death and resurrection would be the most convincing proof of his being the Christ of God. It was by his exaltation to the right hand of the Father that he was fully declared to be the Christ, and by the sending of the Spirit thereupon (Act 2:33); and therefore wait till that is done.

III. Concerning their sufferings for him. So far must they be from thinking how to prevent his sufferings that they must rather prepare for their own.

1. We must accustom ourselves to all instances of self-denial and patience, Luk 9:23. This is the best preparative for martyrdom. We must live a life of self-denial, mortification, and contempt of the world; we must not indulge our ease and appetite, for then it will be hard to bear toil, and weariness, and want, for Christ. We are daily subject to affliction, and we must accommodate ourselves to it, and acquiesce in the will of God in it, and must learn to endure hardship. We frequently meet with crosses in the way of duty; and, though we must not pull them upon our own heads, yet, when they are laid for us, we must take them up, carry them after Christ, and make the best of them.

2. We must prefer the salvation and happiness of our souls before any secular concern whatsoever. Reckon upon it, (1.) That he who to preserve his liberty or estate, his power or preferment, nay, or to save his life, denies Christ and his truths, wilfully wrongs his conscience, and sins against God, will be, not only not a saver, but an unspeakable loser, in the issue, when profit and loss come to be balanced: He that will save his life upon these terms will lose it, will lose that which is of infinitely more value, his precious soul. (2.) We must firmly believe also that, if we lose our life for cleaving to Christ and our religion, we shall save it to our unspeakable advantage; for we shall be abundantly recompensed in the resurrection of the just, when we shall have it again a new and an eternal life. (3.) That the gain of all the world, if we should forsake Christ, and fall in with the interests of the world, would be so far from countervailing the eternal loss and ruin of the soul that it would bear no manner of proportion to it, Luk 9:25. If we could be supposed to gain all the wealth, honour, and pleasure, in the world, by denying Christ, yet when, by so doing, we lose ourselves to all eternity, and are cast away at last, what good will our worldly gain do us? Observe, In Matthew and Mark the dreadful issue is a man's losing his own soul, here it is losing himself, which plainly intimates that our souls are ourselves. Animus cujusque is est quisque - The soul is the man; and it is well or ill with us according as it is well or ill with our souls. If they perish for ever, under the weight of their own guilt and corruption, it is certain that we are undone. The body cannot be happy if the soul be miserable in the other world; but the soul may be happy though the body be greatly afflicted and oppressed in this world. If a man be himself cast away, ē zēmiōtheis - if he be damaged, - or if he be punished, si mulctetur - if he have a mulct put upon his soul by the righteous sentence of Christ, whose cause and interest he has treacherously deserted, - if it be adjudged a forfeiture of all his blessedness, and the forfeiture be taken, where is his gain? What is his hope?

3. We must therefore never be ashamed of Christ and his gospel, nor of any disgrace or reproach that we may undergo for our faithful adherence to him and it, Luk 9:26. For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, and justly. When the service and honour of Christ called for his testimony and agency, he denied them, because the interest of Christ was a despised interest, and every where spoken against; and therefore he can expect no other than that in the great day, when his case calls for Christ's appearance on his behalf, Christ will be ashamed to own such a cowardly, worldly, sneaking spirit, and will say, "He is none of mine; he belongs not to me." As Christ had a state of humiliation and of exaltation, so likewise has his cause. They, and they only, that are willing to suffer with it when it suffers, shall reign with it when it reigns; but those that cannot find in their hearts to share with it in its disgrace, and to say, If this be to be vile, I will be yet more vile, shall certainly have no share with it in its triumphs. Observe here, How Christ, to support himself and his followers under present disgraces, speaks magnificently of the lustre of his second coming, in prospect of which he endured the cross, despising the shame. (1.) He shall come in his own glory. This was not mentioned in Matthew and Mark. He shall come in the glory of the Mediator, all the glory which the Father restored to him, which he had with God before the worlds were, which he had deposited and put in pledge, as it were, for the accomplishing of his undertaking, and demanded again when he had gone through it. Now, O Father, glorify thou me, Joh 17:4, Joh 17:5. He shall come in all that glory which the Father conferred upon him when he set him at his own right hand, and gave him to be head over all things to the church; in all the glory that is due to him as the assertor of the glory of God, and the author of the glory of all the saints. This is his own glory. (2.) He shall come in his Father's glory. The Father will judge the world by him, having committed all judgment to him; and therefore will publicly own him in the judgment as the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person. (3.) He shall come in the glory of the holy angels. They shall all attend him, and minister to him, and add every thing they can to the lustre of his appearance. What a figure will the blessed Jesus make in that day! Did we believe it, we should never be ashamed of him or his words now.

Lastly, To encourage them in suffering for him, he assures them that the kingdom of God would now shortly be set up, notwithstanding the great opposition that was made to it, Luk 9:27. "Though the second coming of the Son of man is at a great distance, the kingdom of God shall come in its power in the present age, while some here present are alive." They saw the kingdom of God when the Spirit was poured out, when the gospel was preached to all the world and nations were brought to Christ by it; they saw the kingdom of God triumph over the Gentile nations in their conversion, and over the Jewish nation in its destruction.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(18) And it came to pass . . .—St. Luke, it will be noted, omits the narrative of our Lord’s walking on the water, of the feeding of the Four Thousand, of the Syro-Phœnician woman, and of the teaching as to the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. We cannot get beyond a conjectural explanation of these phenomena, but it is possible that, as a matter of fact, he simply did not learn these facts in the course of his inquiries, and therefore did not insert them. As far as it goes, the fact suggests the inference that he had not seen the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark in the form in which we now have them. On the narrative that follows (Luk_9:18-27), see Notes on Mat_16:13-28; Mar_8:27; Mar_9:1.

As he was alone praying.—There is, as before (see Introduction, and Notes on Luk_3:21; Luk_5:16; Luk_6:12), something characteristic in the stress which St. Luke lays on the fact. It is as though he saw in what follows the result of the previous prayer.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk_9:18-20

Whom say the people that I am?

--

One of Christs conferences with His disciples

I. OUR LORDS PRAYER. Brethren, He ever liveth to make intercession for us, and if the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much, what are we to think of that Intercessor whom the Father heareth always? It was the privilege of Jacobs family to have a friend at court, and that friend was their own brother. It was the privilege of David to have a friend at court, and that friend was the kings own son. Ah, Christians, both these are combined in your privilege; you have both in Him who now appears in the presence of God for us.

II. OUR LORDS INQUIRY. He asked them, Whom say the people that I am? This is a frequent question, arising not only from curiosity, but vanity. It would be indeed well if we were anxious to know what God says of us, for it is a light thing to be judged of men: He that judges us is the Lord, and upon His decision depends our happiness or misery. But how frequent is the inquiry, What do people say of me? As to some, the answer would be, Why, nothing at all; they do not even think of you; they do not know enough of you to make you the theme of their discourse.

But what do people say of me? asks another. Why, they say, Your tongue walketh through the earth; some call you the Morning Herald, and others, the Daily Advertiser. But what do people say of me? asks another. They say that you are very hard-hearted and closefisted; that you are a busy-body in other mens matters; they say that you are such a Nabal that a man cannot speak to you; they say that you are wiser in your own conceit than seven men that can render a reason. It would be well in certain respects if we knew what people say of us--what friends say of us; yes, and what enemies say of us, too. I remember Archbishop Usher says in an address to God, Lord, bless me with a faithful friend; or, if not, with a faithful enemy, that I may know my faults, for I desire to know them. But Jesus was meek and lowly of heart; He, therefore, did not ask this question from pride or vanity. Nor did He ask it from ignorance. He knew all the numerous opinions afloat concerning Him. But this question seems designed to affect them, to bind them to Himself, and to furnish them with further instruction upon it.

III. Observe THE CHARGE here given. And He straitly charged them, and commanded them to tell no man that thing. We should rather have supposed that He would have ordered His disciples to go and publish it, but His thoughts are not as ours; There is a time for every purpose under the heaven. It seems to be a general law of heaven, that knowledge of every kind should gradually spread. There are some things which must precede others, and make way for them. It is thus you deal with your children, keeping back for a time things from their knowledge. Thus a wise instructor will do with his pupils, he will teach them as they are able to bear it. And this was the method of our Saviour Himself in dealing with His disciples. Had our Lord then immediately proclaimed Himself as the Messiah, it is easy to suppose what insurrections might have taken place by those who would have endeavoured to make Him a king, and to keep Him from suffering. Besides this, the prohibition was only for a limited period. After His resurrection from the dead He appeared to His disciples, and said, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel, beginning at Jerusalem; and Peter, to whom He here spake, filled Jerusalem with His doctrine, and said to the murderers of the Savour, God hath made this same Jesus whom ye crucified both Lord and Christ.

IV. Observe HIS SUFFERINGS. The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be slain. You see, first, that He foreknew them. Secondly, He foretold them, to prepare His disciples for their approach. Thirdly, He describes them.

V. Observe His GLORY. And be raised the third day. We have demonstrations in proof of this. See the witnesses as they come before their adversaries. Believers have other kinds of evidences. They have the witness in themselves; they know the power of His resurrection; they have felt it raising them from a death of sin to a life of righteousness; that like as He was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so should they also walk in newness of life. (W. Jay.)

The Lords question

Who say ye that I am?

1. A question of conscience.

2. A question of controversy.

3. A question of life.

4. A question of the times. (Van Oosterzee.)

Jesus will have His disciples

1. Independently recognize Him as the Christ;

2. Voluntarily confess Him as the Christ. (Van Oosterzee.)

Jesus the Christ

I. THE WORLDS JUDGMENT Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? So, too, in our own time is there infinite divergence among the builders who reject the chief stone of the corner. To some He is the object of a hatred which, in its malignity, would construe His good as evil--others simply pass Him by as though His claims were unworthy of serious thought--others regard Him with respect and veneration, exhaust the resources of language in their attempts to picture His moral beauty, will do anything but trust in Him as a Saviour. To some He is a man full of imperfections, in consistency of goodness far below vast numbers of His unhonoured disciples, to others He is the perfect man, the noblest of all creatures, everything but God. These diversities may be considered under two aspects.

1. The disbelief of the intellect, including all those phases of opinion held by men who distinctly reject the claim of the Lord Jesus to the honours of the Godhead, who do not regard His life and death as the ground of the sinners acceptance with God, and who deny that faith in Him is the condition of salvation. There is a certain amount of respect which this theorist is willing to pay to our Lord. He tells us that Jesus has done for religion what Socrates did for philosophy, and Aristotle for science, that He fixed the idea of pure worship, and that He has thus exerted a wondrous power over the heart of humanity. Yet he would have us believe that He was Himself a self-deluded enthusiast, who yielded His mind up to the idea of His own Messiahship, until He was driven, though almost unconsciously, to act a part in order to sustain His own pretensions, and whose miracles, where they are not the pure inventions of His evangelists, were deceptions practised either by Himself or by some too-zealous followers to impose on popular credulity. The power which Christianity exerts cannot be ignored, and it is necessary to give some explanation of the way in which it has arisen. It is simply impossible to persuade the world that it owes some of its mightiest impulses, and has consecrated some of its noblest affections, to a being who, after all, was nothing more than the creation of the too luxuriant fancy and the too fond affection of a few Jewish disciples, who had contrived to throw around the humble life of an unlettered peasant of Galilee the unreal glory of legends and traditions. Rationalists, therefore, set before us a Jesus from whom they would have us believe this marvellous power has proceeded. Jesus of Nazareth would thus be removed from the page of history, but this other Jesus would not take His place.

2. We note a more frequent and formidable antagonism in the unbelief of the heart. Disbelief involves a certain exercise of mind as to the claims of Christianity. Unbelief may be nothing more than simple passive indifference. Disbelief says there is no Christ, no atonement, no redemption. Unbelief says if there be a Christ I will not worship Him; though there be an atonement I care not to seek its blessings; though there be a Redeemer, of His salvation I care not to partake. Disbelief take up an attitude of positive opposition, and would fain disprove the claims of the gospel. Unbelief may often use friendly words, and do some kindly deeds on behalf of the truth--may treat it with seeming reverence, and even make generous contributions for its support--will, in truth, do everything but receive its message and submit to its power. The practical issue is the same. How many different causes serve to create this secret distaste of the heart to the religion of Christ. In some it is the all-absorbing passion of worldliness which holds the spirit back from faith. In others the pride of self-reliance revolts against a scheme of salvation which ascribes nothing to human merit, and therefore leaves no place for human boasting.

II. THE CHRISTIANS CONFESSION. And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And in relation to it we observe--

1. That it is entirely independent of the worlds judgment. The unanimity of the entire world in an adverse opinion ought not to shake, could not shake the un-doubting confidence of a Christian heart in Jesus. What to Peter were the sneers of Sadducees, the scorn of priests and Pharisees, the various opinions that divided the multitude? Even were the intellect confounded, and the arguments of its logic all silenced, and did the reasoning against the authority of the gospel appear unanswerable, the heart, out of the depths of its own consciousness, would cry out, Still there is a gospel, still there is a Christ, and He is my Saviour, my Lord and my God.

2. It is the expression of a personal faith. The trust which Christ acknowledges, and over which He rejoices, is that which the soul itself reposes in Him, and which is infinitely more than the acceptance of any creed or the association with any Christian Church. It is nothing less than the mans own sense of dependence on Christ as a Redeemer. What can be the value of any so-called belief which stops short of this? Orthodoxy, as fair as the marble statue and as cold, as symmetrical in its proportions and as lifeless in its nature, is a wretched substitute for the living trust of a true soul, which may fall into some errors, but has, at least, this one cardinal excellence, that it cleaves to the Lord with full purpose of heart. Such was the spirit that prompted the words of Peter. He was far from being a perfect man.

3. This faith is the fruit of Divine teaching. Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven. Peter had not reached the conviction thus boldly uttered by means of greater intellectual vigour, or in virtue of any special opportunities of observation, but solely through the grace of God. There were others who knew the great facts in connection with the life and ministry of Christ, on whom they had made no such impression as they had produced on him. It was God alone who made him, as He makes all believers, to differ. The prejudices and passions of the heart, which opposed the acceptance of the gospel, will never yield except to a power Divine.

4. The confession is the necessary outward expression of the hearts inward trust. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. There are various modes by which a man may confess Christ. But there is one act for which no other can be a substitute--unmeaning, nay, rather, self-condemning if it stand alone--but itself the proper supplement to every other deed of holy service. To confess Christ, we must seek to be like Him, but we must also obey Him by bearing His name, and uniting with His people to show forth His death until He come. My brother, are you one of those who shrink from this special confession of Christ? (J. G. Rogers, B. A.)

Alone praying

The bloom of the hawthorn or White May looks like snow in Richmond Park, but nearer London, or by the road side, its virgin whiteness is sadly stained. Too often contact with the world has just such an effect upon our piety; we must away to the far-off garden of paradise to see holiness in its unsullied purity, and meanwhile we must be much alone with God if we would maintain a gracious life below. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Alone with God

One Sabbath night (says a Scotch clergyman), after discoursing on a very solemn subject which had stirred my own soul, I took a walk before going home. It was clear starlight, without any moon, and the heavens looked down upon me with all their sublime impressiveness. I found myself unconsciously walking in the direction of the mill. I had not gone far when I met a friend pacing slowly up and down by the side of a stream near his house. As soon as I came up, he said: Men, I couldna gang hame direct frae the chapel the nicht. After hearing your sermon, I wanted to be alane wi God; and I never feel His presence so much as when I am, too, in a nicht like this.

Praying alone:--A minister, visiting the cottages of the poor, met a little boy who had been taught at school the duty, as well as the privilege of prayer. He said, Do you love to pray, my little fellow? Oh yes, sir! But in so small a house, with so large a family, when and where do you pray? The boy answered, I go to bed with the others; and when they are asleep, I rise. But then you, yourself, must be sleepy; how do you keep awake? asked the minister. I wash my hands and face in the pitcher where the cold water is kept; then I do not feel sleepy.

What men say of Christ

1. Christ did not ask this question for information.

2. He did not ask it because He desired the applause of men.

3. He did not ask it because He intended to form His course according to the reply.

4. But what He did ask it for was that He might ground His disciples in the deepest faith. The answer to His question suggests--

I. THAT PEOPLE HAVE DIFFERENT OPINIONS CONCERNING CHRIST,

II. THE OPINIONS HELD OF HIM WERE HIGH AND HONOURABLE.

III. FOR ALL THAT THEY FELL FAR SHORT OF THE REALITY,

IV. IT IS IMPORTANT THAT WE SHOULD HAVE THE TRUE ESTIMATE OF HIM: that of Peter--The Christ of God. There is a great difference between believing Him to be the Son of God, and believing Him to be Jesus of Nazareth only.

1. You can never trust Him for your spiritual safety if you believe in Him merely as a man.

2. If you believe in Him only as a man, He can never satisfy the yearnings of your spirit. Who is He then? He is not only the greatest of men, but the Son of the Living God, the Saviour of the world. (Thomas Jones.)

Jesus--the Christ

Peters confession remains the central article of the creed of Christendom.

I. IT IS A FACT THAT JESUS OF NAZARETH ACTUALLY LIVED.

II. IT IS A FACT THAT JESUS OF NAZARETH LIVED SUBSTANTIALLY AS REPORTED IN THE FIRST THREE EVANGELISTS. I specify these three Evangelists because their testimony is sufficient for the traditional picture of Jesus, and because their testimony is admitted by those who regard the fourth Gospel as a book of later date, and of less strictly historic character. Any one who is suspicious of the substantial accuracy of our Gospels cannot better treat his haunting fear of legend and myth than by a study of the apocryphal Gospels. (R. H. Newton)

The Christ of God: Tokens of the true Saviour

I. WHAT DID PETER MEAN BY THIS PHRASEOLOGY? Undoubtedly he intended to express his belief that Jesus was the true Messiah.

II. HOW DID PETER AND THE OTHER APOSTLES DISCERN IN SO SATISFACTORY A MANNER THAT JESUS WAS NO IMPOSTOR, AS SOME PRETENDED, BUT WAS INDEED THE CHRIST OF GOD?

1. It may be answered that their common sense was sufficient to discover this.

2. Though common sense might convince them of the excellence of the Saviours character, they had more--there was a Divine impression on their minds giving clearer sight and more satisfactory conviction (See Mat_16:17).

3. To this may be added, the discernment arising from their own faith, giving them experience of His faithfulness and goodness.

4. We may add, having more to judge upon than Peter had, we know this is the Christ of God by the effects of His death, the wondrous influence it has had, and still has.

III. LET US, THEN, TRY OUR PERSONAL HOPES BY THIS DESIGNATION OF THE ONLY SAVIOUR ABLE TO REALIZE THEM. It is only the real Christ of God that saves with a real pardon, a real sanctification, a real crown of glory.

1. Is the Christ of the Socinians the Christ of God?

2. Let us look at the Christ of the Antinomians.

3. There is another sort of Christ spoken of by the self-righteous, who regard the Saviour only as a help, in case they cannot sufficiently help themselves.

4. Are not even believers apt to form notions such as injure the character of the Christ of God? (Isaac Taylor of Ongar.)

Making known the obscured Christ

Not long ago there was a researcher of art in Italy, who, reading in some book that there was a per trait of Dante painted by Giotto, was led to suspect that he had found where it had been placed. There was an apartment used as an outhouse for the storage of wood, hay, and the like. He sought and obtained permission to examine it. Clearing out the rubbish, and experimenting upon the whitewashed wall, he soon detected the signs of the long-hidden portrait. Little by little, with loving skill, he opened up the sad, thoughtful, stern face of the old Tuscan poet. Sometimes it seems to me that thus the very sanctuary of God has been filled with wood, hay, and stubble, and the Divine lineaments of Christ have been swept over and covered by human plastering, and I am seized with an invincible desire to draw forth from its hiding-place, and reveal to men the glory of God as it shines in the face of Christ Jesus! It matters little to me what school of theology rises or what falls, so only that Christ may rise and appear in all His Fathers glory, full-orbed, upon the darkness of this world! (H. W. Beecher.)

Christ the true Messiah

At a solemn disputation which was held at Venice, in the last century, between a Jew and a Christian, the Christian strongly argued from Daniels prophecy of the seventy weeks, that Jesus was the Messiah whom the Jews had long expected, from the predictions of their prophets. The learned rabbi who presided at this disputation was so forcibly struck by the argument that he put an end to the business by saying, Let us shut up our Bibles, for if we proceed in the examination of this prophecy it will make us all become Christians. (Bishop Watson.)

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

Luk 9:18-22. As he was alone praying — Or rather apart from the multitude, for the word καταμονας, here rendered alone, excludes not his disciples, but the multitude, now sent away when they were filled, as appears from Mar 4:10, where the same word is used; and where we read, when he was alone, (καταμονας, apart from the multitude,) they that were about him, with the twelve, asked him of the parable, Or the expression here, καταμονας προσευχομενος, may be rendered, as he was praying alone, or by himself; his prayer being ended, his disciples came to him. He asked them — When he had done praying, during which they probably stayed at a distance, Who say the people that I am, &c. — See this paragraph explained on Mat 16:13-23; and Mar 8:27-33. He commanded them to tell no man, saying, The Son of man must suffer, &c. — As if he had said, Ye must prepare for a scene far different from this.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

§ 73.—ENDOWMENT OF THE APOSTOLIC COLLEGE, Luk_9:18-21.

See notes on Mat_16:13-20; Mar_8:27-30.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

Luk_9:18. It came to pass.—This took place on the way to Cæsarea Philippi: this was a town in the valley of the upper Jordan near Paneas, which had been enlarged and fortified by the tetrarch Philip. Praying.—This circumstance is peculiar to St. Luke. The people.—Lit. “the multitudes” (R.V.).

Luk_9:22. Elders and chief priests and scribes.—The three classes of which the Sanhedrim was composed.

Luk_9:23. To them all.—I.e. to the multitude as well as to His disciples. Will come.—I.e. “desire to come.” His cross.—A prophetic allusion to the manner of His own death: in it there is an anticipation of the part the Gentiles were to play in putting Him to death as the cross was a Roman and not a Jewish instrument of punishment.

Luk_9:24. Whosoever will save.—I.e. “desire to save,” as in Luk_9:23.

Luk_9:25. Be cast away.—Rather, “suffer damage,” as opposed to “gain”: R.V. “forfeit his own self.”

Luk_9:27. Till they see the kingdom of God.—As is evident from the connection in which it stands, the first fulfilment of these words was in the Transfiguration.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Luk_9:18-27

The Divine Christ confessed.

I. The first section gives us Peter’s great confession in the name of the disciples (Luk_9:18-20).—Our Lord is entering on a new era in His work, and desires to bring clearly into His followers’ consciousness the sum of His past self-revelation. The excitement which He had checked after the first miraculous feeding had died down. Amid the seclusion of Cæsarea, far away from distracting influences, He puts these two momentous questions. The first question is as to the partial and conflicting opinions among the multitudes; the second hints at the fuller unveiling of the depths of His gracious personality, which the disciples had experienced, and implies, “Surely you, who have been beside Me, and known Me so closely, have reached a deeper understanding.” It has a tone of the same wistfulness and wonder as that other question of His, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me?” For their sakes He seeks to draw out their partly unconscious faith, that had been smouldering, fed by their daily experience of His beauty and tenderness. Half-recognised convictions float in many a heart, which need but a pointed question to crystallise into master-truths, to which henceforward the whole being is subject. Great is the power of putting our shadowy beliefs into plain words. “With the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Why should this great question have been preceded by the other? Probably to make the disciples feel more distinctly the chaotic contradictions of the popular judgment, and their own isolation by their possession of the clearer light. He wishes them to see the gulf opening between them and their fellows, and so to bind them more closely to Himself. It is the question the answer to which settles everything for a man. It has an intensely sharp point. We cannot take refuge from it in the general opinion. Nor does any other man’s judgment about Him matter one whit to us. Christ has a strange power, after eighteen hundred years, of coming to each of us, with the same persistent interrogation on His lips. And to-day, as then, all depends on the answer we give. Many answer by exalted estimates of Him, like these varying replies, which ascribed to Him prophetic authority; but they have not drunk in the full meaning of His self-revelation unless they can reply with the full-toned confession of the apostle, which sets Him far above and apart from the highest and holiest. The confession includes both the human and the Divine sides of Christ’s nature. He is the Messiah; but He is more than a Jew meant by that name—He is “the Son of the living God,” by which we cannot indeed suppose that Peter meant all that he afterward learned it contained, or all that the Church has now been taught of its meaning, but which, nevertheless, is not to be watered down as if it did not declare His unique filial relation to the Father, and so His Divine nature. Christian progress in doctrine does not consist in the winning of new truths, but in the penetrating further into the meaning of old and initial truths.

II. The startling new revelation of the suffering Messiah (Luk_9:21-22).—The gospel has two parts: Jesus is the Christ, and the Christ must suffer and enter into His glory. Our Lord has made sure that the disciples have learned the first before He leads to the second. The very conviction of His dignity and Divine nature made that second truth the more bewildering; but still the only road to it was through the first. The new teaching as to the sufferings was no new thought to Himself, forced on Him by the growing enmity of the nation. The cross always cast its shadow on His path. He was no enthusiast, beginning with the dream of winning a world to His side, and slowly and heroically making up His mind to die a martyr; but His purpose in being born was to minister to and to die a ransom for the many. Note the detailed accuracy of the prevision which points to the rulers of the nation as the instruments, and to death as the climax, and to resurrection as the issue, of His sufferings; and the clear setting forth of the Divine necessity which, as it ruled all His life, ruled here also, and is expressed in that solemn “must.” The necessity was no external compulsion, driving Him to an unwelcome sacrifice, but one imposed alike by filial obedience and by brotherly love. He must die because He would save.

III. The law which ruled the Master’s life is extended to the servants (Luk_9:23-27).—They recoiled from the thought of His having to suffer. They had to learn that they too must suffer, if they would be His. “If any man will” gives them the option of withdrawal. A new epoch is beginning, and they will have to enlist again, and do it with open eyes. He will have no unwilling soldiers, nor any who have been beguiled into the ranks. No doubt some went away, and walked no more with Him. The terms of service are clear. Discipleship means imitation, and imitation means self-crucifixion. A martyred Master must needs have for followers men ready to be martyrs too. But the requirement goes much deeper than this. There is no discipleship without self-denial, both in the easier form of starving passions and desires, and in the harder of yielding up the will, and letting His will supplant ours. Only so can we ever come after Him, and of such sacrifice of self the cross is the eminent example. When Jesus began to teach His death, He immediately presented it as His servants’ example. The ground of the law is stated in Luk_9:24. The wish to save life is the loss of life in the highest sense. If that desire guide us, then farewell to enthusiasm, courage, the martyr spirit, and all which makes man’s life nobler than a beast’s. He who is ruled mainly by the wish to keep a whole skin loses the best part of what he is so anxious to keep. Regard for self as a ruling motive is destruction, and selfishness is suicide. On the other hand, lives hazarded for Christ are thereby truly saved; and if they be not only hazarded, but actually lost, such loss is gain; and the same law by which the Master “must” die and rise again will work in the servant. Luk_9:25 urges the wisdom of such apparent folly, and enforces the requirement by the plain consideration that “life” is worth more than anything beside. Therefore the dictate of the wisest prudence is that seemingly prodigal flinging away of the lower “life,” which puts us in possession of the higher. Note that the appeal is here made to a reasonable regard to personal advantage, and that in the very act of urging to crucify self. So little did Christ think, as some people do, that the desire to save one’s soul is selfishness. Luk_9:26 confirms all the preceding by the solemn allusion to the coming of the Son of man as Judge. They surely shall then find their lives who have followed Him here. Luk_9:27 adds a confirmation of this announcement of His coming to judge. The question of what event is referred to may best be answered by noting that it must be one sufficiently far off from the moment of speaking to allow of the death of the greater number of His hearers; that it must also be an event, after which these survivors would go the common road into the grave; that it is apparently distinguished from His coming “in the glory of the Father,” and yet is of such a nature as to afford convincing proof of the establishment of His kingdom on earth, and to be, in some sort, a sign of that final act of judgment. All these requirements meet only in the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the national life of the chosen people. That was a crash of which we only faintly realise the tremendous significance. It swept away the last remnant of the hope that Israel was to be the kingdom of the Messiah; and from out of the dust and chaos of that fall the Christian Church emerged, manifestly destined for worldwide extension.—Maclaren.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk_9:18-27

Luk_9:18. Opinions about Jesus Christ.

I. There are those who consider Him to have been the best of men that ever lived, but do not consider Him to have been perfectly sinless.—Three objections are fatal to this opinion:

1. It is contrary to the Saviour’s own claims.

2. It is founded on a prejudice against the miraculous.

3. It deprives Him of all place in connection with salvation.

II. That He was a perfect man, but not the God-man.—Two objections to this opinion:

1. It is opposed to the clear testimonies of Scripture.

2. The Christian Church has ever refused to rest in such a view.

III. That He was a Divine Saviour, but not a Saviour by atoning sacrifice.—But we have in Christ’s own teaching the doctrine of the Atonement.

1. We have a doctrine of penalty following sin.

2. It is taught by what Christ says of His own substitution.

3. It follows from our Lord’s connecting His death with the forgiveness of sins.

4. The fact that Christ connects His death with a covenant, and with a new covenant, brings it in His own teaching into line with the Old Testament sacrifices.—Cairns.

Luk_9:18-20. The Master’s Prayer and the Disciple’s Confession.—The time has come for an onward step. These twelve men must be made to gather into one, and to speak out the net result of these months of silent accompanying. They must be brought to book (so to say) as to their dim, floating ideas. The time is come for confession of Christ. How shall it be done? The Divine Master takes them apart by themselves, on a journey the farthest that He ever made northward in Palestine. He had brought them thither for a sacred purpose. They were to pass from an unrealised to a realised conviction—from the spiritual stage of “believing unto righteousness” to the further spiritual stage of “confessing unto salvation.” Can you wonder that St. Luke, the historian of Christ’s prayers, tells us that this step, this leap, this bound, was prefaced by one of the prayers of Christ? While witnessing His absorbed, engrossed, unconscious solitude, He put to them this question, “Whom say the people that I am?”

I. Surely there is Divine skill, and tenderness as well, in this way of putting the question.—He asks first, What do other people say? before He goes on to propose the vital question, But what do ye, My disciples, My near ones, My own, say and think of Me? Even when the time has come for fixing their floating thoughts, for getting an answer, positive and peremptory, as to the state of their own belief—even then He will approach the subject distantly, lest haply, even then, a too sudden and abrupt interrogation might startle, perplex, or deter them.

II. Well, they say, opinions are divided.—John the Baptist, risen again from the death in Machærus—that is one idea. Elias, come again to fulfil the last prophecy of the Old Testament—that is another. A prophet—one of the prophets—without pledging themselves to a name or an identification—that is a third. In the midst of all these ignorant or superstitious imaginings, what say ye?

III. The time has come for an answer from the disciples.—The brave, sometimes too brave, Peter, as usual, is the spokesman. “The Christ of God.” Was it not for this answer, this revelation, this unveiling, that the “effectual fervent prayer” had ascended? When we think what lay in that good confession—what for future generations—what for a world about to be bought with blood—what for a Church to be founded, as upon a rock, on that brief utterance, so vital, so boundless in the thing signified,—can we imagine an occasion more suitable for the exercise, by anticipation, even of the mediatorial office, than that which required, and waited for, an unveiling, not by flesh and blood, but by a Father in heaven, to men standing here in all the backwardness, and in all the boundedness, of a fallen humanity, of a mystery kept secret hitherto from eternal times?—Vaughan.

Luk_9:21. “To tell no man.”—For these, perhaps, among other reasons:

1. Because His work was not yet finished.

2. Because as yet their faith was very weak and their knowledge partial.

3. Because they had not yet received the Holy Spirit to give power to their testimony.

4. Because the public proclamation of the truth would have precipitated the workings of God’s foreordained plan.—Farrar.

Luk_9:22. “Must suffer.”—The gospel may be stated in two propositions.

1. Jesus is the Christ.

2. The Christ must suffer, die, and rise again; or Christ by death will enter into His glory.

A revelation of the Passion.—Christ reveals—

I. Who are to inflict the sufferings.

II. The form these sufferings are to take.

III. The necessity for His enduring them.

IV. Their issue in His resurrection.

Luk_9:23-26. Three Great Lessons:—

I. Not only Christ, but also His followers, must suffer and deny themselves.

II. That all have a life to save, more precious than all else to them.

III. That the great day of account should be ever before them.

Luk_9:23. The Christian’s Journey.—

1. Those things of which he takes leave.

2. The burden he carries.

3. The road he traverses.

“Will come.”—It is a matter of choice to follow Christ; but if the resolution be formed to do so, there is no choice but to deny oneself and take up the cross.

“Deny himself.”—As Peter said when he denied Christ, “I know not the man,” so say thou of thyself, and act accordingly.—Bengel.

“Deny himself … take up his cross.”—The one is an active, the other a passive, state. Self-denial is a man’s own act, and requires the strenuous exercise of the will. “Taking up the cross” implies patient submission to the will of another.

“His cross.”—If not

(1) contempt or suffering endured for the sake of Christ, then

(2) some form of affliction connected with this earthly life, or

(3) temptations from without, or

(4) inward conflict with sin.

Requisites for Discipleship.

I. The first requisite in a disciple is self-denial.

II. The second requisite is cross-bearing.

III. The third requisite is spiritual service, true and constant obedience.—Anderson.

“No cross, no crown.”

I. The cross is to be taken up, not simply borne, when laid on the shoulder.—This implies willing, cheerful suffering for Christ. Some people endure trials, but always with repining. The spirit of these words requires cheerfulness in suffering for Christ. Half the trial is gone if we meet it in this glad spirit.

II. It is one’s own cross, and not another’s, that is to be taken up.—The particular cross that God lays at our own feet. We are not to make crosses for ourselves, but we are always to accept those that are allotted to us. Each one’s cross is the best for him. If we knew what other people’s crosses were, we might not envy them, or wish to exchange our cross for theirs. What seems a flower-woven cross may be full of sharp thorns. The easiest cross for each one to bear is one’s own.

III. There is a way to remove the crosses out of our life.—Always gladly accept through love to God whatever trial, pain, or loss God sends. If my will acquiesces in His, there is no cross.—Miller.

Self-sacrifice.—Self-sacrifice represents more exactly than self-denial the idea intended to be conveyed by the Lord’s precept here. Not that “let him deny himself?” is other than a literal translation of the original phrase, but that in popular parlance self-denial has come to mean something much more superficial, much less thoroughgoing, than what is obviously denoted by Christ in this passage. Self-denial, in the sense in which it is an essential condition of coming after the Saviour, is the doing by self what St. Peter did by Christ—repudiating all connection with self, utterly disavowing it as our master.—Goulburn.

What is Self-denial?—The word is often and much mistaken in common use, as if it meant much the same as self-control—the control of lower elements of our being by higher; but this is not self-denial as Christ uses the word. To “deny” self means to treat it as non-existent. It means to ignore, to turn the back upon, to shut the eyes to self—something far different from mere self-control.—Moule.

Self-denial.

I. There are few things in which people play more wretched farces than in their efforts at self-denial.—Very few seem to have the remotest conception of what it means. The giving up of meat on Fridays, abstinence from social dissipation in Lent, and many other useless and uncalled-for sacrifices—these things do not constitute self-denial. There is no merit in giving up anything for its own sake.

II. True self-denial is the yielding of the whole life to the will of Christ.—It is self coming down from the life’s throne, laying crown and sceptre at the Master’s feet, and thenceforth submitting the whole life to His sway. It is living all the while not to please ourselves, but to please our Lord—not to advance our own personal interests, but to do His work. It is the glad making of any sacrifice that loyalty to Him requires. Self gives way altogether to Christ as the motive of life.

III. Nothing is true self-denial which is done merely as self-denial.—True self-denial, like all other forms of Christlikeness, is unconscious of self, wists not that its face shines. We deny ourselves when we follow Christ with joy and gladness, through cost and danger and suffering, just where He leads.—Miller.

Luk_9:24-26. Three Reasons for Cross-bearing.

I. We must sacrifice something—either the lower or the higher life, animal happiness or spiritual blessedness (Luk_9:24).

II. The incomparable value of the soul.—He who gains the world at the cost of his soul is a loser by the bargain (Luk_9:25).

III. At the second advent cross-bearers will receive a crown of righteousness.—To cross-spurners will be assigned shame and everlasting contempt.—Bruce.

Luk_9:25. Profit and Loss.

I. The gain here spoken of is nominal, imaginary.

II. The loss is real, and it is the greatest conceivable.

1. The soul is lost by not being exercised.

2. The soul is lost when it is perverted and corrupted.—Service.

Luk_9:26. “His own glory,” etc.—The glory is threefold:

1. His own, which He has to and for Himself as the exalted Messiah.

2. The glory of God, which accompanies Him as coming down from God’s throne.

3. The glory of the angels who surround Him with their brightness.—Meyer.

Ashamed of Christ.—This is what men are guilty of when Christians are in a minority, or when earnest Christianity is powerfully opposed. There is no temptation to be ashamed of Christ when all the world around you is, at any rate, professedly devoted to Him. But the temptation was a very formidable one when the Church was young, and when Christians carried their lives in their hands. Wonderful, however, it is how, in these first ages of the faith, men and women, boys and girls, in all conditions of life, joyfully accepted a painful death rather than be disloyal to their Lord and Saviour. But the wheel of time brings strange revolutions, and we no longer live in times when it could be said with entire truth that no one is ashamed of Jesus Christ. Many in all Christian countries professedly reject His name. And that this is so surely imposes on all true Christians the duty of explicitly confessing Christ before men.—Liddon.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

5. The Glory of the Son of Man confessed on Earth and ratified from Heaven. The Scene on the Summit and at the Foot of Tabor

Luk_9:18-50

a. The Journey To The Transfiguration (Luk_9:18-27)

(Luk_9:18-21, parallel to Gospel for Sts. Peter and Paul’s Day; Mat_16:13-20.)

18And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him; and he asked them, saying, Whom [Who] say the people that I am? 19They answering said, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias [Elijah]; and others say, that one of the old prophets 20is risen again. He said unto them, But whom [who] say ye that I am? Peter answering said, The Christ of God. 21And he straitly [strictly] charged them, and commanded them to tell no man that thing [this]; 22Saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, andbe raised [rise again, V. O.5] the third day. 23And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. 24For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. 25For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away? 26For whosoever shall be [have been] ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and [that] of the holy angels. 27But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see [have seen] the kingdom of God.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Luk_9:18. And it came to pass.—By comparison with Matthew and Mark, it appears at once that Luke, after the mention of the miracle of the Loaves, passes over all the words and deeds of the Lord which are related Mat_14:22; Mat_16:12; Mar_6:45; Mar_8:26. Harmonistics must take note of this, and Isagogics give the grounds of this. The best explanation is given perhaps by the conjecture that the written sources (Diëgesen) of which Luke made use were in relation to this period of the public life of the Saviour less complete, less rich in comparison with, what follows. At least no cause can be discovered for an intentional omission.

As He was alone praying.—According to Matthew and Mark the Saviour was now in the region of Cæsarea Philippi. (See, respecting this place, Lange on Mat_16:13.) Here also, as we have several times remarked, Luke brings into view the praying of the Saviour. Justly does Bengel say: “Jesus Patrem rogarat, ut discipulis se revelaret. Nam argumentum precum Jesu colligi potest ex sermonibus actionibusque insecutis.” Comp. Luk_6:12-13. Apparently we must understand the matter thus—that the disciples had found the Saviour praying in solitude, as in Luk_11:1, while from Luk_9:23 it appears to be the case that besides the Twelve, other listeners had soon approached, so that He, in a few moments, found a wider circle, gathered around Him to which He could address His words.

And He asked them.—From the preceding prayer we must conclude that the Saviour Himself considered the conversation now following as in the highest degree momentous, and this will not surprise us if we only transport ourselves into His circumstances during this period of time. The more unequivocally He had lately experienced the irreconcilable enmity of His adversaries, the more clearly did the end of His course, now drawing nearer, rise before His soul. The time had now come when He must speak more openly than hitherto to His disciples of His approaching suffering and death. The prayer which the Saviour offered afterwards for Simon, Luk_22:32, can hardly have been excluded here. But before He now grants to the Twelve a deeper view into the nature of His work, He will convince Himself of their manner of thought respecting His Person and His character.

Who say the people that I am?—He wishes to know for what the [common] people, this interpreter of public opinion, took Him, Him who commonly designated Himself by the somewhat mysterious name of the Son of Man. Other views see in Lange, ad loc. The inquiry after the views of men, in which one only heard the voice of flesh and blood, might justly surprise us if we forgot that it only constituted the transition to a far more momentous one.

Luk_9:19. John the Baptist.—The opinions are different, yet fully explicable. That John the Baptist had risen, was perhaps an echo of that which was talked of at Herod’s court, perhaps also an inference drawn by high esteem, to which it appeared impossible that such a man of God should have been actually and forever taken away from the world.—Elijah.—Comp. Mal_4:5.—One of the old prophets.—Men believed, from Mic_5:6 and other passages, that they were warranted to conclude that at the time of the Messiah different prophets would again appear. (See Lightfoot on Joh_1:21.) In brief, for something ordinary and insignificant no one took the Nazarene: a messenger of God they could not fail to recognize in Him; perhaps He was the Forerunner. For the Messiah public opinion did not now take Him to be. It was divided, and moreover had not in the main become more favorable to the Saviour. If there had formerly existed among the people a disposition to believe in His Messianic dignity, now there is no more talk of this. After the great schism, Joh_6:66 seq., the sun of popular favor is set. Carefully considered, therefore, the popular voice is now no longer a homage, but only a denying of the Lord.

Luk_9:20. But who say ye that I am?—Plainly the emphasis falls upon ὑμεῖς, in opposition to the ὄχλοι. First the Lord will hear the echo of the people’s views; He will hear now His powerful witnesses’ own voice, the expression of their living, personal, and independent faith. It appears how highly the Lord esteemed the confession of faith of His disciples, and how He is the farthest possible from reckoning their Christology among the Adiaphora.

The Christ of God.—The complete form of the answer, see Mat_16:16. It is wholly impossible to prove that it was only the theocratical and not the supernatural dignity of the Saviour which here hovered before the mind of Peter. If before this even rough shipmen had recognized something superhuman in Jesus, Mat_14:33, the Saviour would certainly not have pronounced His disciple blessed for his confession, had this side of His being yet remained wholly hidden to him, although, of course, it is evident that this faith of the heart in Peter had not for that as yet become in his mind a fully rounded dogma. As to the rest, we must very decidedly declare ourselves against the view that takes this confession of Peter for the same which is related Joh_6:69 (Wieseler, Rau). This last is much less decided and powerful, at least according to the true reading in Tischendorf. Besides, the two are in their historical connection heaven-wide apart, and the two confessions cannot be identified without most arbitrarily accusing John of inaccuracy.

Luk_9:21. To tell no man.—The more detailed answer of the Saviour, and His praise bestowed upon Peter, see Mat_16:17-19. Comp. Lange, ad loc. That the Saviour was almost, as it were, “terrified” at the confession of Peter (Fritzsche, Schneckenburger, Strauss), is as little implied in the letter as in the spirit of the narrative. As to the ground on which especially He commanded silence, this is at once evident. For the first time it has now become manifest that His self-consciousness agrees in substance with the confession of faith of the Twelve. He Himself has impressed upon the language of faith the seal of His attestation, and therefore, in fact, from this moment there already existed a little congregation in which the faith on Jesus as the Christ was the centre of union. If this community, with its manner of thinking, manifested itself externally, it would here have found premature adherents, and there have roused renewed opposition. Therefore the Saviour will have them keep silence respecting His person so long as His high priestly work was not yet accomplished, but at the same time now declares His apostles capable of receiving more particular instructions respecting the nature of this work.

Luk_9:22. The Son of Man must suffer many things.—In antithesis to the figurative and covert allusions to His approaching death, which they had already heard, comp. Mat_9:15; Joh_2:19; Joh_4:37-38, the Saviour now begins to speak in a literal manner. He makes known, 1. who the accomplishers of this suffering shall be, 2. in what form it is to be prepared for Him, 3. the necessity of this suffering, 4. the issue of this suffering, namely, His resurrection. The view (De Wette, a. o.) that the last is here added only ex eventu, is with right denied and refuted by Lange, Gospel of Matthew, p. 302. The offence taken by Peter at this word and the rebuke suffered by him are related only by Matthew and Mark.

Luk_9:23. If any man will come after Me.—Here, as in Joh_6:67, the Lord gives His apostles the choice whether they will follow Him even now, when the way goes for a time into the depth. If they do it, they shall know beforehand what it will cost them. Whoever follows Him, let him take up his cross daily, a symbol of self-denial which the Saviour would certainly not have adopted by preference if He had not Himself, even already in the distance, beheld this instrument of His own pain and ignominy. There exists no ground for declaring the remarkable καθ̓ ἡμέραν, which Luke alone has, an interpolation a seriore manu. From Jesus Himself does it proceed, and places the extent and the difficulty of this requirement of self-denial in the clearest light. Worthy of notice is it that it is no other than Peter who afterwards so deeply apprehended and so powerfully reëchoed this requirement. (See 1Pe_4:1-3; and comp. Romans 6; Col_3:1-4, &c.)

Luk_9:24. Whosoever will save his life.—In order to make evident the indispensable necessity of self-denial, the Saviour uses a double motive. The first is taken from the present, Luk_9:24-26, the other from the future, Luk_9:27. Only by self-denial, He says, can a man become partaker even here of the higher life of the Spirit, so that he has therefore the choice between temporary gain and eternal loss. Here also is a proof of the higher unity between the Synoptical and the Johannean Christ. Comp. Joh_12:25. The life, which the man will commonly preserve at any price, is the natural, selfish life, whose centre is the ψυχή, considered out of its relation to the πνεῦμα. Whoever will preserve this life, and therefore walk in accordance with his natural inclinations, may reckon upon it that he loses his true, his proper life: but those who, for the sake of Christ and His cause, set at stake the possession of life and the enjoyment of life in the common sense of the word, will through this very temporary perishing become partakers in perpetually richer measure of the true and higher life of the Spirit. A word of infinitely deep significance for the first apostles of the Lord, who for His sake left all, yet not less significant for the history of the development of the Christian life of each one. (See the profound remarks of Lange, Leben Jesu, ii. p. 899.) In the most striking manner has Luke, Luk_9:25, expressed the antithesis, the gaining of the whole world, and the ἀπολέσας δὲ ἑαυτόν, the loss of the personality, to whose preservation the man had brought such sacrifices. “As if thou in a general conflagration hadst saved and preserved around thee thy great and full palace, but hadst thyself to be consumed, what wouldst thou then have gained in comparison with him who out of the conflagration of his goods had rescued his life? Therefore, also, on the contrary: what does it harm a man to set at stake the whole world, which after all shall one day pass away, and burn up, if only the soul is delivered? A human soul’s true, everlasting salvation is more worth than the whole world. Thus must one reckon gain and loss over against one another, and whoever has not so reckoned will at the end experience, to his everlasting loss, how enormously he misreckons! Then will the bankrupt break out with his τί δώσει ἄνθρωπος, whereto the Psalm has already answered: It ceaseth forever!” Stier.

Luk_9:26. Whosoever shall have been ashamed.—A word of the Lord which reminds us of the sublimest declarations of the fourth Gospel. The Ἰουδαῖοι there appearing (Luk_12:42-43), show us by their example what it is to be ashamed of the Saviour, as Paul, Rom_1:16, is an example of the opposite. It is noticeable that the Saviour does not say: Whoever has been ashamed of the Son of Man, but: Whoever has been ashamed of Me and of My words—a manifest proof that here the discourse is of a being ashamed which is possible even with outward intellectual knowledge of Him and of His Messianic dignity.—Of him shall also the Son of Man be ashamed.—A milder form of the threatening, Mat_7:21; Mat_25:41, and therefore so much the more impressive, since the Saviour here represents Himself as surrounded with a threefold glory: 1. His own, 2. the Father’s, 3. that of the holy angels, who now become witnesses of the well-deserved shame that is prepared for the unfaithful disciple. It is scarcely to be doubted that the Saviour directs His eye towards His last παρονσία, at the συντέλεια τοῦ αίῶνος. But before the thought of its possibly great distance could weaken the impression of the warning, He concludes with a nearer revelation of His kingly glory.

Luk_9:27. But I tell you of a truth.—Even this solemn exordium, which the parallel passages in Matthew and Mark also give, causes us to expect that it will appear that the Lord Himself attributes especial importance to the assurance which He is now about to give. More plainly can He hardly intimate that His disciples shall outlive Him, that His cause shall triumph over all hostility, and that He, by the name of the Son of Man, means to designate Himself as the Messiah, for He speaks now of a kingdom in which the Son of Man gives law Nay, scarcely can we avoid the belief that this very saying, which the first three Evangelists have with so great unanimity preserved in the same connection, was one of the strongest supports for the hope of the apostolic age, that there would be a speedy and visible return of Christ. The longing for its fulfilment contributed also to preserve the letter of the promises, and the love of the heart sharpened understanding and memory. However, it cannot be difficult to decide which coming of the Saviour He wished to be immediately understood by this saying. He has here in mind, as in Mat_26:64, the revelation of His Messianic dignity at the desolation of the Jewish state, which should take place within a human generation. (For a statement and criticism of other views, see Lange, on Mat_16:28.) Thus, also, the beginning of this whole conversation is beautifully congruous with the end. For as the Saviour in the beginning had alluded to the humiliation which was about to be prepared for Him by the Jewish magnates, Luk_9:22, He now ends, Luk_9:27, by making mention of the triumph which He should win over the Jewish magnates, when the ruins of the city and of the temple should proclaim His exaltation. This His coming in His kingdom, which at least John (Luk_21:22) beheld, and apparently also others of his fellow-disciples, is at the same time a type and symbol of His last παρουσία, that mentioned Luk_9:26. The shorter form in Luke: ἰδεῖν τὴν βασ. τ. θεοῦ must be more particularly explained from the fuller one in Matthew and Mark, in the parallel passages. Comp. moreover Mat_10:23, as a proof how not alone the Johannean but also the Synoptical Christ speaks of a continuous coming of the Messiah in different phases. In view of the intimate connection which, according to the Synoptics, exists between this saying of the Lord and the Transfiguration which is soon after related, it may be justly supposed that the disciples, even in this event, beheld the actual, even though only preliminary, fulfilment of this prophecy of the Lord.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Although the discourse here given opens no new period in the life of our Saviour, it may yet be said that in the region of Cæsarea Philippi, there began a new period of the intercourse of our Lord with the Twelve. After He had persuaded Himself of their independent and living faith, He now opens to them the sanctuary of His Passion, in order to guard them against apostasy when hereafter the critical period should dawn. Comp. Joh_13:19. With deep wisdom He nevertheless connects the first unequivocal declaration of His Passion with the setting forth of His future Glory, into which He was to enter in this very way. Comp. Luk_24:26.

2. Mark indicates very happily the distinction between the Saviour’s earlier and present intimations of His sufferings by the word παῤῥησίᾳ, Luk_8:32. Instead of covert there come now express, instead of general more particular, intimations. Without doubt this higher truth was closely connected with the development of Jesus’ own consciousness in reference to His approaching fate, which consciousness became continually clearer the longer He looked upon the prophetic image of the Messiah and observed the course of circumstances. But quite as certain is it that there is no ground to deny the possibility of such a foreknowledge a priori (De Wette, Von Ammon, Strauss,) and that the criticism which will explain such prophecies merely ex eventu is no way purely historical, but is an entirely arbitrary dogmatism. Further on we hear from Jesus Himself, Luk_24:44-46, from the angels, ibid. (Luk_9:7-8), nay, even from His foes, Mat_27:62-63, that He prophesied not only His dying, but also His resurrection. As respects the stiff-necked doubting and afterwards the unbelieving sadness of His disciples, which there has often been a disposition to use against the genuineness of the prophecy of the Resurrection, this was certainly not the first and only time that the Saviour was better understood by crafty enemies than by friends full of prejudice. Very often the disciples took a figurative expression as literal (e.g. Mat_16:11-12); why can they not, on the other hand, have viewed a literal expression as figurative? From their point of view they could not possibly conceive that the Messiah should die, and could not therefore accommodate themselves to the prophecy of the Resurrection, and still less could they imprint it deeply in their souls. And when our Lord, according to Matthew and Mark, said that He would return definitely τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ, into life, this is only the repetition of that which He had earlier intimated in another form, Mat_12:40; Joh_2:19. Comp. Hasert, Ueber die Vorhersagungen Jesu von seinem Tode und von seiner Auferstehung. Berlin, 1839.

3. As to the question by what means the Saviour, in the way of His theanthropic development, came to the clear insight of the certainty and necessity of His death, we are warranted by His own declaration to give the answer that He viewed the image of His Passion in the mirror of the prophetic Scriptures. Assertions that He would then have understood the Old Testament incorrectly, as this, rightly explained, says nothing whatever of a suffering or dying Messiah (De Wette, Strauss), make only then some show when one places the hermeneutics of modern science higher than those of the Lord Jesus and of His apostles enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Comp. Steudel, Theol. des A. B. p. 402, and Hoffmann, l. c. 2. p. 121. Drawn from these sources, the foresight of the Saviour was much less the fruit of a grammatical exegesis of particular Vaticinia than of a typico-symbolic apprehension of the whole Ancient Covenant. In the fate of the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah, He saw His own, and in all which former men of God had experienced and suffered, He beheld the image of His own future [or as some one has excellently said, He looked into the Old Testament and found it full of Himself.—C. C. S.]. Comp. Mar_9:13; Luk_13:33. Once familiarized with thoughts of death, the Saviour could, even by looking at the political condition of His people, come in a simple and natural way to the conception that heathens, and those heathens Romans, would be the accomplishes of the sentence of death, executioners, therefore, by whom the punishment of the cross had been introduced among conquered nations. And who would consider it as impossible that the God-man should come in still other ways than those of natural reflection to such a thought? In the most intimate communion with the Father, the Father’s will had without doubt become so clear to Him that He could with full certainty speak of a Divine δεῖ.

4. The first prediction of His Passion is of so high an importance because it gives us to view this Passion not only from the human but especially from the Divine side. In that which shall come upon Him the Saviour recognizes not only the abuse of the freedom of men, but also the fulfilment of the eternal counsel of God, who not only foresaw and permitted, but expressly willed that Christ should suffer all this. Through the voluntary obedience with which the Son submits Himself to the plainly recognized counsels of the Father, He, at the same time, converts the fate awaiting Him into the highest deed of His love.

5. The necessity of the way of suffering in order to arrive at glory is so great that this way has been ordained not only for the Master, but also for all His disciples without distinction. Here also does the word of J. Arnd hold true: “Christ has many servants, but few followers.” Only he will gradually attain to bear καθ’ ἡμέραν what the Lord had to take upon Himself, who can as thoroughly deny and abjure the old man in himself as Peter once denied the Lord.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

No specially important turning-point of life but must be hallowed with solitary prayer.—To the Saviour it is not indifferent what men say of Him. Neither can it be indifferent to His disciples.—Public opinion we must be as far from slavishly following as from haughtily despising.—The affinities and the difference between the Saviour on the one hand, John Elijah, and the prophets on the other hand.—The spirit of the faithful prophets reappearing in Jesus far more gloriously.—The disciple of the Saviour called, 1. To hear the vox populi respecting Him, but, 2. to raise himself above it.—But who say ye that I ?Amos 1. A question of conscience; 2. a question of controversy; 3. a question of life; 4. a question of the times.—Jesus will have His disciples, 1. Independently recognize Him as the Christ; 2. voluntarily confess Him as the Christ.—No sincere faith without confession, no genuine confession without faith.—The confession of Peter the first of the million voices of the Christian confession.—What then had to be kept silent is now loudly proclaimed.—Silence and speech have each their time.—The first prediction of the Passion: 1. Its remarkable contents; 2. its high significance.—Expectation of suffering and expectation of glory in the consciousness of our Lord most intimately joined together.—The way of suffering: 1. How far it must be trodden by Him alone; 2. how far it must be trodden by all His disciples after Him.—The disciple of the Saviour a cross-bearer day by day, willingly coming after Christ.—The Christian calculation of profit and loss.—To win the highest the highest must be staked.—The all-surpassing worth of a soul.—The spiritual bankruptcy of him that gains the whole world but loses himself.—Even the gain of the whole world is only vain show and harm so long as a man has not won Christ.—The Saviour’s saying concerning the gain and loss of life compared with Paul’s experience, Philipp. Luk_3:6-9.—How a confessor of the Gospel may even to-day be ashamed of the Master: 1. In his heart; 2. in his words; 3. in his deeds.—The Christian, 1. Needs not to be ashamed of his Lord; 2. may not, and, 3; will not, it he is a Christian in truth.—The seeking of honor with men, the way to shame before God.—He who willingly humbled Himself, shall come again in glory.—No disciple of the Lord shall die till he has in greater or less measure seen the coming of the kingdom of God.—The coming of the Lord, 1. A bodily, afterwards, 2. a spiritual, and finally, 3. a spiritual and bodily (geist-leibliches) coming.—The history of the world, the judgment of the world, but not the final judgment.—The way of suffering, 1. Clearly foreseen by Jesus; 2. plainly pointed out to His disciples to be walked in; 3. for Him and His disciples issuing in glory.—The requirement of self-denial for Jesus’ sake: 1. A difficult, 2. a necessary, 3. a wholesome, 4. a reasonable requirement.—The Saviour in relation to His faithful disciples: 1. How much He requires; 2. how infinitely more He promises.

Starke:—Canstein:—The truth is only one, but errors and lies are many.—Brentius:—That Christ’s kingdom is a kingdom of the cross must not be concealed, that no one may take offence thereat.—True self-denial distinguishes the genuine Christian from every one else.—It requires much to become a Christian, still more to remain one.—So blind is our fleshly heart that it seeks life in that which brings it death.—In religion nothing comes according to our plans, but all according to God’s.—The justalionis holds good with Christ in both directions.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—It is an unhappy dying when one tastes death before he has seen the kingdom of God.—Salvation is certainly very often nearer to us than we think. Rom_13:11.

Heubner:—The Christian’s independence of popular opinions.—Gerlach:—The bearing of the Cross is not something that is reserved for certain extraordinary occasions; whoever feels his own and the world’s sin deeply, bears it daily.—J. Saurin:—Discourse on the soul, drawn, 1. From the excellence of its nature; 2. from the infiniteness of its duration; 3. from the price of its redemption.—Dietrich:—Sermon on the day of St. Peter and St. Paul upon the partially parallel Gospel, Mat_16:13-20.—Tholuck:—The daily crossbearing of the Christian: 1. In what it consists; 2. why to the very end of life it should be a daily one.

Footnotes:

[3]Luk_9:10.—In view of the great diversity of readings in this passage, it seems to us that the reading of Tischendorf, which Meyer also has adopted, εἰς πόλιν καλουμένην Βεθσαϊδά, has, especially on internal grounds, the greatest probability in its favor. Lectio difficilior præferenda. “Εἰς πόλιν must have occasioned difficulty, since what follows took place not in a city, but in a wilderness (comp. Luk_9:12, and also Mar_6:31).” [Tischendorf, supported by B., L., X., Ξ., Cod. Sin., has simply τοπον ερημον. Alford says: “the text not appearing to meet the requirements of the narrative following, was amended from the parallels in Matthew and Mark.”—C. C. S.]

[4][Luk_9:12.—More exactly: “And the day began to wear away, and the twelve coming said to him,” &c.—C. C. S.]

[5]Luk_9:22.—According to the reading of Lachmann and Tischendorf ἀναστῆναι instead of ἐγερθῆναι. [Ἀναστ., A., C, D., 2 other uncials; ἐγερθ., Cod. Sin., B., R., Ξ., al. longe. pl. Ἀναστ approved by Tischendorf, Lachmann, Meyer, Alford.—C. C. S.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luke

CHRIST’S CROSS AND OURS

Luk 9:18 - Luk 9:27.

This passage falls into three distinct but closely connected parts: the disciples’ confession of Christ by Peters mouth, the revelation to them of Christ’s sufferings as necessarily involved in His Messiahship, and His extension to them of the law of suffering as necessarily involved in discipleship. Luke dwells much more lightly than Matthew on the first of these stages, omitting the eulogium and benediction on Simon Bar-Jona, and the great words about the rock on which the Church is built, but he retains the essentials, and emphasises the connection of the three parts by his very brevity in regard to the first.

I. Luke has special interest in recording Christ’s prayers, and though he does not tell us where the great confession was made, he tells what Jesus did before it was made.

We may well suppose that His solitary thoughts had been busied with the sufferings on which He was soon to enter, and that His resolve to impart the knowledge of these to His followers was felt by Him to be a sharp trial of their loyalty. The moment was a fateful one. How should fateful moments be prepared for but by communion with the Father? No doubt the feebleness of the disciples was remembered in His petitions.

Jesus’ double question was intended, first, to make the disciples feel the gulf which separated them from the rest of the nation, and so to make them hold the faster by their unshared faith, and be ready to suffer for it, if needful, as probably it would be. It braces true men to know that they are but a little company in the midst of multitudes who laugh at their belief. That Jesus should have seen that it was safe to accentuate the disciples’ isolation indicates the reality which He discerned in their faith, imperfect as it was.

‘Whom say ye that I am?’ Jesus brings them to articulate utterance of the thought that had been slowly gathering distinctness in their minds. We see our beliefs more clearly, and hold them more firmly, when we put them into definite words. The question acted like a chemical element dropped into a solution, which precipitates its solid matter. Nebulous opinions are gathered up into spheres of light by the process of speaking them. That question is all-important for us. Our conceptions of Christ’s nature and office determine our relation to Him and our whole cast of life. True, we may say that He is Lord, and not be His disciples, but we are not His disciples as He would have us unless His Messiahship stands out clear and axiomatic in our thoughts of Him. The conviction must pass into feeling, and thence into life, but it must underlie all real discipleship. Doctrine is not Christianity, but it is the foundation of Christianity. The Apostolic confession here is the ‘irreducible minimum’ of the Christian creed.

It does not contain more than Nathanael had said at the beginning, but here it is spoken, not as Peter’s private belief, but he is the mouthpiece of all. ‘Whether it were I or they, so we’ believe. This confession summed up the previous development of the disciples, and so marked the end of one stage and the beginning of another. Christ would have them, as it were, take stock of their convictions, as preliminary to opening a new chapter of teaching.

II. That new chapter follows at once.

The belief in Him as Messiah is the first story of the building, and the second is next piled on it. The new lesson was a hard one for men whose hopes were coloured by Jewish dreams of a kingdom. They had to see all these vulgar visions melting away, and to face a stern, sad reality. The very fact that He was the Messiah necessarily drew after it the fact of suffering. Whence did the ‘must’ arise? From the divine purpose, from the necessities of the case, and the aim of His mission. These had shaped prophetic utterances, and hence there was yet another form of the ‘must,’ namely, the necessity for the Messiah’s fulfilling these predictions.

No doubt our Lord led His saddened listeners to many a prophetic saying which current expositions had smoothed over, but which had for many years set before Him His destiny. What a scene that would be-the victim calmly pointing to the tragic words which flashed ominous new meanings to the silent hearers, stricken with awe and grief as the terrible truth entered their minds! What had become of their dreams? Gone, and in their place shame and death. They had fancied a throne; the vision melted into a cross.

We note the minute particularity of Jesus’ delineation, and the absolute certainty in His plain declaration of the fact and time of the Resurrection. It is not wonderful that that declaration should have produced little effect. The disciples were too much absorbed and confounded by the dismal thought of His death to have ears for the assurance of His Resurrection. Comfort coming at the end of the announcement of calamities so great finds no entrance into, nor room in, the heart. We all let a black foreground hide from us a brighter distance.

III. The Master’s feet mark the disciples’ path.

If suffering was involved in Messiahship, it is no less involved in discipleship. The cross which is our hope is also our pattern. In a very real sense we have to be partakers of the sufferings of Christ, and no faith in these as substitutionary is vital unless it leads to being conformed to His death. The solemn verses at the close of this lesson draw out the law of Christian self-denial as being inseparable from true discipleship.

Luk 9:23 lays down the condition of following Jesus as being the daily bearing, by each, of his own cross. Mark that self-denial is not prescribed for its own sake, but simply as the means of ‘following.’ False asceticism insists on it, as if it were an end; Christ treats it as a means. Mark, too, that it is ‘self’ which is to be denied-not this or that part of our nature, but the central ‘self.’ The will is the man, and it is to be brought into captivity to Jesus, so that the true Christian says, ‘I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’ That is much deeper, harder, wholesomer teaching than separate austerities or forsakings of this or that.

Luk 9:24 grounds this great requirement on the broad principle that to make self the main object of life is the sure way to ruin oneself, and that to slay self is the road to true life. Note that it is he who ‘would save’ his life that loses it, because the desire is itself fatal, whether carried out or not; while it is he who does ‘lose’ his life for Christ that preserves it, because even if the extreme evil has been suffered, the possession of our true lives is not imperilled thereby. No doubt the words refer primarily to literal death, and threaten the cowards who sacrifice their convictions for the sake of keeping a whole skin with the failure of their efforts, while they promise the martyr dying in the arena or at the stake a crown of life. But they go far beyond that. They carry the great truth that to hug self and to make its preservation our first aim is ruinous, and the corresponding one, that to slay self for Christ’s sake is to receive a better self. Self-preservation is suicide; self-immolation is not only self-preservation, but self-glorification with glory caught from Jesus. Give yourselves to Him, and He gives you back to yourselves, ennobled and transfigured.

Luk 9:25 urges obedience to the precept, by an appeal to reasonable self-regard and common-sense. The abnegation enjoined does not require that we should be indifferent to our own well-being. It is right to consider what will ‘profit,’ and to act accordingly. The commercial view of life, if rightly taken, with regard to all a man’s nature through all the duration of it, will coincide accurately with the most exalted. It ‘pays’ to follow Christ. Christian morality has not the hypersensitive fear of appealing to self-interest which superfine moralists profess nowadays. And the question in verse 25 admits of only one answer, for what good is the whole world to a dead man? If our accounts are rightly kept, a world gained shows poorly on the one side, against the entry on the other of a soul lost.

Luk 9:26 tells in what that losing oneself consists, and enforces the original exhortation by the declaration of a future appearance of the Son of man. He of whom Christ is then ashamed loses his own soul. To live without His smile is to die, to be disowned by Him is to be a wreck. To be ashamed of Jesus is equivalent to that base self-preservation which has been denounced as fatal. If a man disavows all connection with Him, He will disavow all connection with the disavower. A man separated from Jesus is dead while he lives, and hereafter will live a living death, and possess neither the world for which he sacrificed his own soul nor the soul for which he sacrificed it.

We cannot but note the authoritative tone of our Lord in these verses. He claims the obedience and discipleship of all men. He demands that all shall yield themselves unreservedly to Him, and that, even if actual surrender of life is involved, it shall be gladly given. He puts our relation to Him as determining our whole present and future. He assumes to be our Judge, whose smile is life, whose averted face darkens the destiny of a man. Whom say ye that He who dared to speak thus conceived Himself to be? Whom say ye that He is?

Luk 9:27 recalls us from the contemplation of that far-off appearance to something nearer. Remembering the previous announcement of our Lord’s sufferings, these words seem intended to cheer the disciples with the hope that the kingdom would still be revealed within the lifetime of some then present. Remembering the immediately preceding words, this saying seems to assure the disciples that the blessed recompense of the life of self-crucifying discipleship is not to be postponed to that future, but may be enjoyed on earth. Remembering Christ’s word, ‘Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,’ we doubt whether there is any reference here to the destruction of Jerusalem, as is commonly understood. Are not the words rather a declaration that they who are Christ’s true disciples shall even here enter into the possession of their true selves, and find the Messianic hopes more than fulfilled? The future indicated will then be no more remote than the completion of His work by His death and Resurrection, or, at the farthest, the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, by which the fuller life of renewed natures was bestowed on those who were following Jesus in daily self-surrender.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CAESAREA-PHILIPPI

Mat 16:13-16; Mar 8:27-29; Luk 9:18-20. This is the northern terminus of our Savior’s ministry, two days’ journey on horseback from the Sea of Galilee up the Jordan Valley to the foot of Mt. Hermon, where a great spring is one of the principal sources of the Jordan. This city is just over the border of Galilee in Iturea, at the time of our Savior under the tetrarchy of Philip. M.: “And Jesus having come into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, asked His disciples, saying, Whom do the people say that I, the Son of man, am? And they said, Some say, John the Baptist; others, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or One of the prophets. He says to them, But whom do you say that I am? And Simon Peter, responding, said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus responding, said to him, Blessed art thou, Simon, the son of Jonah; because flesh and blood did not reveal it to thee, but My Father who is in the heavens.” About twenty-eight months have rolled away since our Lord entered upon His ministry, meanwhile He has flooded Galilee with His miracles; visited, in person or by the Twelve, nearly all the cities and villages in Israel. Despite all efforts, John the Baptist sending his disciples, with the avowed purpose of bringing Him out into an unequivocal proclamation of His Christhood, — He simply sent them back, to tell John about the mighty works which they had seen.

a. Doubtless our Lord felt that it was better for His works to proclaim His Christhood than that He should publicly avow it. Here was the trouble: the prophets had wrought miracles, especially Elijah and Elisha, even raising quite a number from the dead. Consequently some, and among them King Herod, thought He was John the Baptist risen from the dead. As Elijah had wrought such stupendous miracles, bringing fire from heaven and raising the dead, on the very ground traversed by Jesus, many thought that He was some one of the old prophets who had risen from the dead. During these twenty-eight months, while the whole country has been flooded with miracles so stupendous as at once to beggar all cavil, the people have had an opportunity, by the irresistible fact of His mighty works, corroborated by His inimitable preaching, to settle down in the conclusion of His Christhood without an open proclamation.

b. The simple fact is that the Jews, having endured the galling yoke of a foreign despotism thirty-two years, and all settled in the prophetical revelation that the Christ is to be King of the Jews, are eager to crown Him the very moment that matter is settled, while the Roman soldiers were holding the gates of every city, ready to kill any man who would claim to be king, without having received the crown from the hands of Caesar. This was the very accusation written over His bead on His cross when He was crucified) “This is the King of the Jews.” Hence the necessity of postponing the open avowal of His Messiahship to the latest practical date.

c. I trow, this was the reason for His going away off to Caesarea-Philippi, out of the circle of His old audiences, and away from the multitude, who had crowded after Him, professing discipleship. When I visited Caesarea- Philippi, I went up on one of the peaks of Mt. Hermon, hanging over the city, where there is a great military citadel, about two thousand feet long and three hundred wide, built of solid masonry, though in ruins, the walls mainly yet intact, which had been occupied during the ages of Roman, Saracen, Crusade, and French rule, within which there is an old temple, said to have been built by Herod the Great. Tradition says that in this temple, when Jesus preached to the people, He proclaimed His Christhood, propounding the above questions to Peter, the apostolic senior, and in this, as well as other cases, the representative and speaker of the Twelve.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9:18-27 Peter’s confession that Jesus was the Messiah marked a turning point, as Jesus moved from demonstrating his messianic authority through miracles to explaining the unexpected suffering of the Messiah. Jesus accepted the confession but clarified that his being the Messiah would involve suffering and death. He called his disciples to follow him regardless of the cost.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk 9:18. [Καὶ ἐγένετο, and it came to pass) A memorable point of termination (epoch or boundary of time), marked at once by Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Mat 16:13, Mar 8:27). They all, with a remarkable concert of statement, place here the commencement of the last departure of the Saviour to the northern borders (coasts) of the land of Israel. It is near Cæsarea-Philippi that He privately asks His disciples, Whom do men say that I am? And then He informs them as to His Passion. Then He so directs His route, as finally now to sow the good seed throughout the whole land of Israel. After the transfiguration He again returns to Capernaum, passing thence through the middle of Samaria and Galilee: further, in continuation, having crossed the Jordan, He proceeds to the land of Judea from that side; and having at length bid farewell to Bethabara and crossed the Jordan again, He came to Jericho and Bethany.—Harm., p. 367.]—προσευχόμενον, praying) Jesus had prayed the Father that He would reveal Himself to His disciples. For the subject of the prayers of Jesus may be inferred from His subsequent words and actions; ch. Luk 6:12-13 [His praying all night was preparatory to the election of the Twelve].

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk_9:18-20. See on Mat_16:13-16; Mar_8:27-29. As to the second miraculous feeding Luke is silent; a silence which Schleiermacher and many others, even Weizsäcker, make use of in opposition to the reality of the second miracle (see in general on Mat_15:33). But this silence is related to the enigmatical hiatus which Luke has left between Luk_9:17-18, entirely passing over everything that occurs in Mar_6:45 to Mar_8:27, and in the parallel passage of Matthew. No explanation is given of this omission, and it seems to have been occasioned by some casualty unknown to us. Possibly the only reason was that in this place he had before him another written source besides Mark, which did not comprise the fragments in question, and from which, moreover, he borrowed the peculiar situation with which Luk_9:18 begins. Special purposes for the omission (Hilgenfeld, Weiss, p. 699 f.) are arbitrarily assumed, as if in his idea the portion omitted were, on the one hand, not of sufficient importance, on the other, too detailed (as the history of the Canaanitish woman), and the like. Weizsäcker, p. 66 f., proceeds more critically, but still unsatisfactorily, when he relegates the events to Luk_9:51 ff., where occur several points of contact with the fragments here passed over.

Luk_9:19. ἄλλοι δέ] without a previous οἱ μέν. See on Mat_28:17; Mar_10:32. The opinion: Ἰωάνν. τ. βαπτ., as that of the majority, is first of all declared without limitation.

Luk_9:20. ὁ Πέτρος] προπηδᾶ τῶν λοιπῶν καὶ στόμα πάντων γενόμενος, Theophylact.

τὸν Χριστὸν τ. Θεοῦ] See on Luk_2:26.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 9:18-27 . The Christ and the cross (Mat 16:13-28 , Mar 8:27 to Mar 9:1 ). At this point occurs a great gap in Lk.’s narrative as compared with those of Mt. and Mk., all between Mat 14:22 ; Mat 16:12 and between Mar 6:45 ; Mar 8:27 being omitted. Various explanations of the omission have been suggested: accident (Meyer, Godet), not in the copy of Mk. used by Lk. (Reuss), mistake of the eye, passing from the second feeding as if it were the first (Beyschlag). These and other explanations imply that the omission was unintentional. But against this hypothesis is the fact that the edges of the opposite sides of the gap are brought together in Lk.’s narrative at Luk 9:18 : Jesus alone praying , as in Mat 14:23 , Mar 6:45-46 , yet the disciples are with Him though alone ( κατὰ μόνας συνῆσαν α . οἱ μαθηταί ), and He proceeds to interrogate them. This raises the question as to the motives for intentional omission, which may have been such as these: avoidance of duplicates with no new lesson (second feeding), anti-Pharisaic matter much restricted throughout (ceremonial washing), Jewish particularism not suitable in a Gentile Gospel, not even the appearance of it (Syrophenician woman). κατὰ μόνας , the scene remains unchanged in Lk. that of the feeding of the 5000. No trace in this Gospel of Caesarea Philippi, or indeed of the great northerly journey (or journeys) so prominently recognised in Mk., the aim of which was to get away from crowds, and obtain leisure for intercourse with the Twelve in view of the approaching fatal crisis. This omission can hardly be without intention. Whether Lk. knew Mk.’s Gospel or not, so careful and interested an inquirer can hardly have been ignorant of that northern excursion. He may have omitted it because it was not rich in incident, in favour of the Samaritan journey about which he had much to tell. But the very raison d’être of the journey was the hope that it might be a quiet one, giving leisure for intercourse with the Twelve. But this private fellowship of Jesus with His disciples with a view to their instruction is just one of the things to which justice is not done in this Gospel. Their need of instruction is not emphasised. From Lk.’s narrative one would never guess the critical importance of the conversation at Caesarea Philippi, as regards either Peter’s confession or the announcement by Jesus of the coming passion.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3. First Announcement of the Passion: Luk 9:18-27.

Up to the first multiplication of the loaves, it is impossible to make out any continuous synchronism between the synoptics, as the following table of the series of preceding incidents shows:—

Numbers might be thrown into a bag and taken out again hap-hazard thrice over, without obtaining an order apparently more capricious and varied. Yet of these three narratives one is supposed to be copied from the other, or to have emanated from the same written source!

Nevertheless, towards the end a certain parallelism begins to show itself, first of all between Mark and Luke (Gadara, Jaïrus, Mission of the Twelve), then between Matthew and Mark (Nazareth, murder of John, desert and first multiplication). This convergence of the three narratives into one and the same line proceeds from this point, after a considerable omission in Luke, and becomes more decidedly marked, until it reaches Luk 9:50, as appears from the following table:—

How is the large omission to be explained which Luke’s narrative exhibits from the storm following the first multiplication to the last announcement of the Passion, corresponding to two whole chapters of Matthew (Mat 14:22 to Mat 16:12) and of Mark (Mar 6:45 to Mar 8:26)? How is the tolerably exact synchronism which shows itself from this time between all three to be accounted for? Meyer gives up all attempts to explain the omission; it was due to an unknown chance. Reuss (§ 189) thinks that the copy of Mark which Luke used presented an omission in this place. Bleek attributes the omission to the original Greek Gospel which Matthew and Luke made use of; Matthew, he supposes, filled it up by means of certain documents, and Mark copied Matthew. Holtzmann (p. 223) contents himself with saying that Luke here breaks the thread of A. (primitive Mark), in order to connect with his narrative the portion which follows; but he says nothing that might serve to explain this strange procedure.

But the hypothesis upon which almost all these attempted solutions rest is that of a common original document, which, however, is continually contradicted by the numerous differences both in form and matter which a single glance of the eye discovers between Matthew and Mark. Then, with all this, the difficulty is only removed a step further back. For it becomes necessary to explain the omission in the original document. And whenever this is done satisfactorily, it will be found necessary to have recourse to the following idea, which, for our own part, we apply directly to Luke. In the original preaching of the gospel, particular incidents were naturally grouped together in certain cycles more or less fixed, determined sometimes by chronological connection (the call of Matthew, the feast and the subsequent conversations, the tempest, Gadara, and Jaïrus), sometimes by the similarity of the subjects (the Sabbatic scenes, Luk 6:1-11). These cycles were first of all put in writing, with considerable freedom and variety, sometimes by the preachers for their own use, and in other cases by their hearers, who were anxious to fix their recollection of them. The oldest writings of which Luke speaks (Luk 1:1) were probably collections more or less complete of these groups of narratives (ἀνατάξασθαι διήγησιν). And what in this case can be more readily imagined than the omission of one or the other of these cycles in any of these collections? An accident of this kind is sufficient to explain the great omission which we meet with in Luke. The cycle wanting in the document he used extended a little further than the second multiplication of the loaves, whilst the following portions belong to a part of the Galilean ministry, which, from the beginning, had taken a more definite form in the preaching. This was natural; for the facts of which this subsequent series is composed are closely connected by a double tie, both chronological and moral. The subject is the approaching sufferings of Jesus. The announcement of them to the disciples is the aim of the following discourse; and to strengthen their faith in view of this overwhelming thought is evidently the design of the transfiguration. The cure of the lunatic child, which took place at the foot of the mountain, was associated with the transfiguration in the tradition; the second announcement of the Passion naturally followed the first, and all the more since it took place during the return from Caesarea to Capernaum; which was the case also with certain manifestations of pride and intolerance of which the apostles were then guilty, and the account of which terminates this part. In the tradition, this natural cycle formed the close of the Galilean ministry. And this explains how the series of facts has been preserved in almost identical order in the three narratives.

The following conversation, reported also by Matthew (Mat 16:13 et seq.) and Mark (Mar 8:27 et seq.), refers to three points: 1 st. The Christ (Luk 9:18-20); 2 d. The suffering Christ (Luk 9:21-22); 3 d. The disciples of the suffering Christ (Luk 9:23-27).

Jesus lost no time in returning to His project of seeking a season of retirement, a project which had been twice defeated, at Bethsaïda-Julias, by the eagerness of the multitude to follow Him, and again in Tyre and Sidon, where, notwithstanding His desire to remain hid (Mar 7:24), His presence had been discovered by the Canaanitish woman, and afterwards noised abroad through the miracle which took place. After that He had returned to the south, had visited a second time that Decapolis which he had previously been obliged to quit almost as soon as He entered it. Then He set out again for the north, this time directing His steps more eastward, towards the secluded valleys where the Jordan rises at the foot of Hermon. The city of Caesarea Philippi was situated there, inhabited by a people of whom the greater part were heathen (Josephus, Vita, § 13). Jesus might expect to find in this secluded country the solitude which He had sought in vain in other parts of the Holy Land. He did not visit the city itself, but remained in the hamlets which surround it (Mark), or generally in those quarters (Matthew).

1 st. Luk 9:18-20. The Christ.

According to Mark, the following conversation took place during the journey (ἐν τῇ ὁδῲ); Mark thus gives precision to the vaguer indication of Matthew. The name of Caesarea Philippi is wanting in Luke’s narrative. Will criticism succeed in finding a dogmatic motive for this omission? In a writer like Luke, who loves to be precise about places (Luk 9:10) and times (Luk 9:28), this omission can only be accounted for by ignorance; therefore he possessed neither Mark nor Matthew, nor the documents from which these last derived this name. The description of the moral situation belongs, however, to Luke: Jesus had just been alone praying. “Arbitrary and ill-chosen scenery,” says Holtzmann (p. 224). One would like to know the grounds of this judgment on the part of the German critic. Would not Jesus, at the moment of disclosing to His disciples for the first time the alarming prospect of His approaching death, foreseeing the impression which this communication would make upon them, having regard also to the manner in which He must speak to them under such circumstances, be likely to prepare Himself for this important step by prayer? Besides, it is probable that the disciples took part in His prayer. The imperfect συνῆσαν, they were gathered together with Him, appears to indicate as much. And the term καταμόνας (ὁδούς understood), in solitude, in no way excludes the presence of the disciples, but simply that of the people. This appears from the antithesis, Luk 9:23: “And He said to them all,” and especially from Mark, Luk 9:34: “Having called the multitude.”

The expression, they were gathered together, indicates something of importance. Jesus first of all elicits from His disciples the different opinions which they had gathered from the lips of the people during their mission. The object of this first question is evidently to prepare the way for the next (Luk 9:20).

On the opinions here enumerated, see Luk 9:8 and Joh 1:21. They amount to this: Men generally regard thee as one of the forerunners of the Messiah. The question addressed to the disciples is designed, first of all, to make them distinctly conscious of the wide difference between the popular opinion and the conviction at which they have themselves arrived; next, to serve as a starting-point for the fresh communication which Jesus is about to make respecting the manner in which the work of the Christ is to be accomplished.

The confession of Peter is differently expressed in the three narratives: the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew); the Christ (Mark); the Christ of God (Luke). The form in Luke holds a middle place between the other two. The genit., of God, signifies, as in the expression Lamb of God: He who belongs to God, and whom God sends.

It has been inferred from this question, that up to this time Jesus had not assumed His position as the Messiah amongst His disciples, and that His determination to accept this character dates from this point; that this resolution was taken partly in concession to the popular idea, which required that His work of restoration should assume this form, and partly to meet the expectation of the disciples, which found emphatic expression through the lips of Peter, the most impatient of their number. But, 1. The question in Luk 9:20 has not the character of a concession; on the contrary, Jesus thereby takes the initiative in the confession which it calls forth. 2. If this view be maintained, all those previous sayings and incidents in which Jesus gives Himself out to be the Christ, must be set aside as unauthentic; and there are such not only in John (Luk 1:39-41; Luk 1:49-51, Luk 3:14, Luk 4:26), but in the Syn. (the election of the Twelve as heads of a new Israel; the parallel which Jesus institutes, Matthew 5, between Himself and the lawgiver of Sinai: “You have heard that it hath been said..., but I...;” the title of bridegroom which He gives Himself, Luk 5:35, and parallels). The resolution of Jesus to assume the character of the Messiah, and to accomplish under this national form His universal task as Saviour of the world, was certainly matured within His soul from the first day of His public activity. The scenes of the baptism and temptation forbid any other supposition; hence the entire absence of anything like feeling His way in the progress of His ministry. The import of His question is therefore something very different. The time had come for Him to pass, if we may so express it, to a new chapter in His teaching. He had hitherto, especially since He began to teach in parables, directed the attention of His disciples to the near approach of the kingdom of God. It was now necessary to turn it towards Himself as Head of this kingdom, and especially towards the future, wholly unlooked for by them, which awaited Him in this character. They knew that He was the Christ; they had yet to learn how He was to be it. But before commencing on this new ground, He is anxious that they should express, in a distinct declaration, the result of His instructions and of their own previous experiences. As an experienced teacher, before beginning the new lesson He makes them recapitulate the old. With the different forms and vacillations of opinion, as well as the open denials of the rulers before them, He wants to hear from their own lips the expression of their own warm and decided conviction. This established result of His previous labour will serve as a foundation for the new labour which the gravity of His situation urges Him to undertake. The murder of John the Baptist made Him sensible that His own end was not far off; the time, therefore, was come to substitute for the brilliant form of the Christ, which as yet filled the minds of His disciples, the mournful image of the Man of sorrows. Thus the facts which, as we have seen (p. 403), led Jesus to seek retirement in the desert of Bethsaïda-Julias, that He might be alone with His disciples, furnished the motives for the present conversation.

We read in John, after the multiplication of the loaves (chap. 6), of a similar confession to this, also made by Peter in the name of the Twelve. Is it to be supposed, that at the same epoch two such similar declarations should have taken place? Would Jesus have called for one so soon after having heard the other? Is it not striking that, owing to the omission in Luke, the account of this confession, in his narrative as in John’s, follows immediately upon that of the multiplication of the loaves? Certainly the situation described in the fourth Gospel is very different. In consequence of a falling away which had just been going on amongst His Galilean disciples, Jesus puts the question to His apostles of their leaving Him. But the questions which Jesus addresses to them in the Syn. might easily have found a place in the conversation of which John gives us a mere outline. At the first glance, it is true, John’s narrative does not lead us to suppose such a long interval between the multiplication of the loaves and this conversation as is required for the journey from Capernaum to Caesarea Philippi. But the desertion of the Galilean disciples, which had begun immediately, was not completed in a day. It might have extended over some time (Joh 6:66: ἐκ τούτου, from that time). Altogether, the resemblance between these two scenes appears to us to outweigh their dissimilarity.

Keim admirably says: “We do not know which we must think the greatest; whether the spirit of the disciples, who shatter the Messianic mould, set aside the judgment of the priests, rise above all the intervening degrees of popular appreciation, and proclaim as lofty and divine that which is abased and down-trodden, because to their minds’ eye it is and remains great and divine,—or this personality of Jesus, which draws from these feeble disciples, notwithstanding the pressure of the most overwhelming experiences, so pure and lofty an expression of the effect produced upon them by His whole life and ministry.” Gess: “The sages of Capernaum remained unmoved, the enthusiasm of the people was cooled, on every side Jesus was threatened with the fate of the Baptist..., it was then that the faith of His disciples shone out as genuine, and came forth from the furnace of trial as an energetic conviction of truth.”

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Alone from the people.

Although the world be tossed up and down, betwixt divers errors, yet we ought not to contemn the truth, but be so much the more desirous to know it, and be more constant to confess it.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 18. Whom say the people] οι οχλοι, the common people, i.e. the mass of the people. See this question considered on Mt 16:13, &c.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

18-22. St Peter’s Confession. Christ prophesies His Death and Resurrection.

18. alone] Rather, in private, as the context shews.

the people] Rather, the multitudes; those whom Jesus had taught and healed and fed, or those who seem to have been always at no great distance. The two other Evangelists place this memorable scene in the neighbourhood of Caesarea Philippi. His life at this epoch had come to resemble a continuous flight. He did not enter Caesarea Philippi. He always avoided towns (with the single exception of Jerusalem), probably from His love for the sights and sounds of nature, and His dislike for the crowded squalor and worldly absorption of town-communities; and He specially avoided these Hellenic and hybrid cities, with their idolatrous ornaments and corrupted population. This event may well be regarded as the culminating point in His ministry. He had now won the deliberate faith and conviction of those who had lived in close intercourse with Him, and who, in continuation of His ministry, were to evangelize the world. See Mat_16:13-21; Mar_8:27-31.

that I am] “That I, the Son of man, am?” Mat_16:13.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

They answering said, John the Baptist,.... This was the opinion of some who thought that he was risen from the dead, as in Luk 9:7.

but some say Elias; the prophet, and the Tishbite; who according to the Jewish notion, was to be the forerunner of the Messiah, so in Luk 7:8.

and others say: that one of the old prophets is risen again; thus were they divided in their sentiments about him. See Gill on Luk 9:8

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

18 And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am?

Ver. 18. As he was alone praying] Examinationi preces praemittendae. All our sacrifices should be salted with this salt.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

See the Mat 16:13-27 notes; Mar 8:27-38 notes.

Luk 9:20

The Christ of God - The “Anointed” of God. The “Messiah” appointed by God, and who had been long promised by him. See the notes at Mat 1:1.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

As he was alone praying: i.e. remote from the people, though his disciples are said to have been with him. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Matthew and Mark tell us this discourse passed at Caesarea Philippi (or at least one of the same import). Matthew also gives us an account of it with more circumstances. See Poole on "Mat 16:13", and following verses to Mat 16:23.

As he was alone praying; that is, free from the multitude, for the next words tell us, the

disciples were with him. (Luk 9:22) is not to be found in the other evangelists; and if Luke hath reported these words in the right order of time, they afford us a probable reason of what is said Luk 9:21, why Christ would not yet be published as the Christ, or the Son of God. Because he was to suffer, and it might much have shaken people’s faith, as to that point, if they had seen the person whom they believed such suffering, and to be so despitefully used as he was; he therefore desired to be concealed as to that, until he should be declared the Son of God with power, by his resurrection from the dead.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Vers. 18-27. Jesus" question to his own: Who did they think he was? He tells them of a suffering Messiah, and describes the lot of his own true followers.

And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am? With these abrupt words, St. Luke changes for his readers the time and scene. Since the miracle of feeding the five thousand at Bethsaida Julias, Jesus had preached at Capernaum the famous sermon on the "Bread of life" (reported in John 6); he had wandered to the north-east as far as the maritime cities of Tyro and Sidon; had returned again to the Decapolis region for a brief sojourn; and then once more had turned his footsteps north; and it was in the extreme confines of the Holy Land, in the neighbourhood of Caesarea Philippi, and close to the great fountain, the source of the sacred Jordan, at the foot of the southern ridge of Hermon, where he put the momentous question here chronicled, to his listening disciples. Much had happened since the five thousand were fed. The defection which the Master had foreseen when he commenced his parable-teaching with the sad story of the "sower," had begun. After the great Capernaum sermon, (Joh 6) many had fallen away from him; the enthusiasm for his words was rapidly waning; the end was already in sight. "Well," he asks his own, "what are men saying about me? Whom do they think that I am?

Vers. 18-36. The Saviour"s secret revelations.

After the miracle of the loaves Jesus resumes his season of devotion, and in the course of it he asks the disciples who had just returned from their mission-tour what reports are being circulated about him. They tell him that some say he is John Baptist, some Elias, some one of the prophets risen again. This shows that they regarded his present life as preliminary only. The idea of his being the real Messiah, "the Christ of God," was not entertained by any of the outsiders at all. It is then he asks them what their idea is, when Peter answers unhesitatingly, "The Christ of God." And now we must inquire

I THE REASON FOR THIS SECRECY ABOUT THE MESSIAHSHIP. (Vers. 18-22) Though the disciples believed in his Messiahship, they are directed not to make it known. Now, we must remember how different the Jewish ideas of the Messiahship were from the reality presented by Christ. Even such a noble-minded man as John Baptist had doubted the propriety of the course Jesus took. How much more liable to mistake would the common people be, if it had been blazed abroad that he was Messiah! It was needful, therefore, to wait till the picture was nearer completion before people were asked to look upon it. In fact, it was only his intimates who could at such a stage realize his magnificence at all. To give the people time to form a proper opinion, to prevent them from rising into premature opposition, to allow them no valid excuse if they rejected him at last, was the purpose of his secrecy and patience. He saw clearly that he "must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain," but he would not provoke the crisis by publishing his Messianic claims. His modesty and secrecy in this matter are in striking contrast to the manners and methods of the world.

II PERSONAL SALVATION THROUGH SELF-SACRIFICE. (Vers. 23-27) While predicting his death, he also predicts his resurrection. This is salvation through self-sacrifice. He immediately indicates that we are under the same law. The man alone saves himself who dedicates himself even unto death to Jesus. There are two policies pursued.

1. The selfish policy. People think they are so very valuable that they must save themselves at every turn. Hence they give the strength of their time and attention to self-preservation. This is their first law of nature. In doing so, they think that if they can only gain as much of the world and worldly things as possible, the better. They think it wise to win the world. But now Jesus shows that such a course only ends in utter loss of self. What does the self-centred, self-preserving soul become? What is the fate of the grasping, worldly mind? Such a soul shrivels up, becomes a nonentity, a mere derelict or castaway on the sea of existence. Such a life is "not worth living.

2. Notice the self-sacrificing policy. This is the policy pursued by the soul which is devoted to Jesus as supreme. It is no trial to carry the cross; such a soul is ready to die any day for Jesus. He cannot be ashamed or" Jesus, or of his words, but prizes him and them as beyond all price. And what is such a soul"s experience? He feels that he is self-possessed and the subject of a grand development. He really has gained himself. His powers of mind and of heart grow into luxuriance, and he feels enriched in all the elements of being as he goes onward. And if perchance he becomes a martyr for the faith and lays down, as these disciples did, his life for Jesus, he finds in an immortal future of further dedication all his best being carried forward. Death may cripple him in working powers here, but promotion awaits him beyond the shadows, and he finds that "he is himself again" after the death-experience is over. Jesus thus presents the case in the proper light self-sacrifice is real salvation of self if our self-sacrifice is for the sake of Jesus.

III THE PRIVATE GLIMPSE OF GLORY. (Vers. 28-36) Eight days after the noble confession of Christ by the disciples, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up to a mountain-top, that he might have another season of prayer. Though so busy, he never became prayerless. A most useful lesson! And here we have to note:

1. That transfiguration came through prayer. (Ver. 29) There is nothing changes people"s appear ance so suddenly and so satisfactorily as being on the mountain-top of prayer. Jesus in transfiguration-glory is but a type of his people who come radiant from the secret places too. If there were more prayer on the part of God"s people, there would be more transfiguration and less scepticism about its efficacy.

2. Transfigured ones are attractive to the heavenly world. (Vers. 30, 31) Moses and Elias from their abodes of bliss are but indications of a perpetual interest in transfigured men. A new star is not more attractive to the astronomer than is a transfigured and radiant soul to the inhabitants of heaven. And further, the decease to be accomplished at Jerusalem is the supreme topic with the men from the heavenly city. For to this did the Law and the prophets point, and in the abodes of bliss other interests have not superseded this. If the cherubim were represented as gazing rapturously upon the mercy-seat and its baptism with blood, so may we believe the whole society out of which Moses and Elias came concentrate their interest upon the salvation which comes through the death of Jesus.

3. Transfigured ones attract attention from the inhabitants of earth. (Ver. 32) The disciples had fallen asleep, but the glory awoke them, as a candle will when brought before a sleeper. They saw the Master"s glory, and Moses and Elias at his side, and they regarded the Messianic kingdom as having in this triple glory dawned.

4. There is a natural desire to retain the rapturous vision. (Ver. 33) As soon as the disciples became watchful witnesses, Moses and Elias appear to have moved away. Their converse has now been interrupted by unspiritual auditors, and so they prepare for their departure. It is in these circumstances that Peter proposes to retain the visitors by making tabernacles" in the mount. With such a reinforcement, he thinks, as Moses and Elias, in radiance bright, the victory of Messiah will be assured. It is thus we dream. We read the history of the heroes who are gone, and we imagine that it" we were only reinforced from the past we should be triumphant all along the line. Their spirit and their history may well inspire us, but they cannot take our burden.

5. The rapture may pass away in cloud, but Jesus abides with us for ever. (Vers. 34-36) There can be little doubt about this bright cloud being the Shechinah. It came to indicate the true manifestation of God in the incarnate Son, and to withdraw the possible competitors. The disciples feared as they entered the cloud. But a gracious paternal voice assured them, "This is my beloved Son: hear him." And when the cloud cleared away, they saw no man, but Jesus only. To the teaching of Jesus, consequently, they would yield intenser attention. Besides, they kept it secret what they had seen. It was one of those glorious visions which could not wisely be yet revealed. Let us enjoy Jesus, no matter how rapturous associations may fade away. R.M.E.

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

Apart - From the multitude. And he asked them - When he had done praying, during which they probably stayed at a distance. Matt. xiv, 13; Mark viii, 27.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Peter’s Confession and Christ’s Answer.

The confession of Peter and the Twelve:

v. 18. And it came to pass, as He was alone praying, His disciples were with Him; and He asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am?

v. 19. They answering said, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others say that one of the old prophets is risen again.

v. 20. He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Peter answering- said, The Christ of God.

v. 21. And He straitly charged them, and commanded them to tell no man that thing,

v. 22. saying, The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day.

It was some time before Jesus was able to withdraw from the neighborhood of the Sea of Galilee and find time for rest and uninterrupted intercourse with His disciples. But when the occasion offered, He gladly availed Himself of the opportunity, traveling up into the northern part of Gaulanitis. Here He had leisure for prayer. And here He could speak to His disciples alone, to the Twelve that were with Him. And after some time He tested them with a searching question, not so much to determine the state of their faith (for His omniscience knew that) as to have them make an open confession. He asked first what the people in general said of Him, whom they believed Him to be. And the disciples answered what rumors were afloat regarding the Lord’s identity, as in verses 7 and 8. But now came the Lord’s test question as to their own personal conviction. He addressed them all, but Peter gave the answer for them. Boldly and gladly he cried out: The Christ of God. That was saying that they had learned to know their Master as the promised Messiah, the Anointed One of God, that they believed Him to be the One through whom the salvation of the world was to come. This knowledge was indeed still mixed with a good deal of carnal understanding. But it was a wonderful thing that they had ’made at least so much headway. Jesus therefore accepted the confession and commended them for it, but He also immediately made an effort to lead their thoughts into the right channel concerning His office. Gravely and emphatically admonishing them not to make this fact known among the people at large, lest their false understanding of the work of the Messiah precipitate a crisis, He gave them a prophecy concerning the purpose of His coming into the world, the first prediction of His Passion. He told them that He, the Son of Man, must, that the divine obligation was resting upon Him to suffer much and to be rejected officially by the leaders of the Jewish Church and to be put to death, but also to rise again on the third day. Here the principal moments in the great Passion are given. His fate was sealed when the high priests and elders and scribes, the members of the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem, declared such a person excommunicated that would declare his adherence to Jesus. The people were too easily cowed. Many believed in their hearts that Jesus was a prophet and the Messiah Himself, but they did not dare to make an open declaration of their faith, and so matters went on through the great suffering to His death. Only one thing the Jewish leaders had not taken into consideration, the rising on the third day, which upset all their fine calculations, and proved Christ the Victor, the Son of God with power.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

These verses relate to us a private conference which our Saviour had with his disciples, touching their own, and others’ opinion concerning himself.

Where observe, 1. Our Saviour’s enquiry, what the generality of the people thought and said of him: Whom do men say that I am? Not as if Christ were ignorant, or did vain gloriously enquire after the opinion of the multitude; but his intention and design was to settle and more firmly establish his disciples in the belief of his being the true and promised Messiah. The disciples tell him, some took him to be John the Baptist: some, Elias; some one of the prophets. It is no new thing, it seems to find diversity of judgments and opinions concerning Christ and the affairs of his kingdom.

Observe, 2. Peter, as the mouth of all the apostles, and in their names, makes a full and open profession of Christ, acknowledging him to be the true and promised Messiah: Thou art the Christ of God.

Learn thence, that the veil of Christ’s human nature did not keep the eye of his disciples’ faith from discerning him to be truly and really God: Thou are the Christ of God.

Observe, 3. The charge and special injunction given by Christ to tell no man of him: that is, not commonly to publish, and openly to declare him to be the Son of God, because being in his state of humiliation, the glory of his divinity was to be concealed until his resurrection; he was then declared to be the Son of God with power, Rom 1:4

Observe lastly, the great wisdom of our Saviour in acquainting his disciples with the near approach of his death and sufferings: The Son of man must suffer many things, etc.

This our Saviour did,

1. To prevent that scandal and offence which otherwise they might have taken at his sufferings.

2. The better to fit and prepare them to bear that great trial when it did come.

3. To correct the error which they had entertained concerning the temporal kingdom of the Messiah, and that he was to be a great and mighty prince here upon earth; for these reasons did Christ frequently acquaint his disciples with his sufferings.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [LXX. B. The Great Confession].

LXX. THIRD WITHDRAWAL FROM HEROD'S TERRITORY. Subdivision B. THE GREAT CONFESSION MADE BY PETER. (Near Cæsarea Philippi, Summer, A. D. 29.) aMATT. XVI. 13-20; bMARK VIII. 27-30; cLUKE IX. 18-21.

b27 And Jesus went forth, and his disciples, into the villages of Cæsarea Philippi [The city of Paneas was enlarged by Herod Philip I., and named in honor of Tiberias Cæsar. It also bore the name Philippi because of the name of its builder, and to distinguish it from Cæsarea Palestinæ or Cæsarea Strotonis, a city on the Mediterranean coast. Paneas, the original name, still pertains to the village, though now corrupted to Banias. It is situated under the shadow of Mt. Hermon at the eastern of the two principal sources of the Jordan, and is the most northern city of the Holy Land visited by Jesus, and save Sidon, the most northern point of his travels]: a13 Now when Jesus came into the parts of Cæsarea Philippi, cit came to pass, bon the way cas he was praying apart, the disciples were with him: and he asked bhis disciples, saying, unto them, aWho do men say that the Son of man is? aWho do men cthe multitude say that I am? [Jesus asks them to state the popular opinion concerning himself as contrasted with the opinion of the rulers, Pharisees, etc.] 19 And they answering btold him, saying, csaid, aSome say John the Baptist; cbut band asome, bothers, Elijah; but cand others, aJeremiah, or cthat one of the old prophets is risen again. [For comment on similar language, see Gal_1:16] hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven. [Peter was blessed by having a revelation from God by which facts were made known that could not be discovered by the unaided human reason. God had revealed the truth to him in the words and works of Jesus, and this revealed truth was to him a source of happiness both temporal and eternal. Like confessions as to this truth had been made before ( Mat_14:33, Joh_1:49), but they had been made under the pressure of miraculous display and strong emotion. Hence they were rather exclamatory guesses at the truth, and differed from this now made by Peter which was the calm expression of a settled conviction produced both by the character and by the miracles of Jesus.] 18 And I say also unto [411] thee, That thou art Peter [petros, a noun masculine] and upon this rock [Petra, a noun feminine] I will build my church [The tense here is future. Christ had followers, but they were not yet organized, and hence had no such structural form as to suggest a similitude to a building]; and the gates of Hades [Hades was the name of the abode of the dead. Its gate symbolized its power because the military forces of an ancient city always sallied forth from its gates] shall not prevail against it. [Death shall neither destroy the organic church which is in the world, nor the members thereof which go down into the grave ( 1Th_4:15, 1Co_15:54-56). No passage in the word of God has called forth more discussion than this and the succeeding verse, the first point in dispute being as to what is meant by the rock; i. e., whether Christ or Peter or Peter's confession is the foundation of the church; the second point being as to the extent of the power and authority bestowed on Peter by the symbol of the keys. To aid us in reaching a correct conclusion we must note that Jesus speaks in metaphorical language. He represents: 1. His kingdom as a city about to be built upon a rock. 2. Himself as a builder of the city. 3. Simon Peter as the one who holds the keys to the gates by which egress and regress is had to the city. 4. The gates or powers of the opposing city of Hades are not able to prevail against this kingdom city. Now, since Jesus himself occupies the position of builder in the metaphor, and Simon Peter the position of key-bearer, neither of them can properly be regarded as the foundation. The foundation must therefore be the confession which Peter has just spoken, since it is all that remains that is liable to such application. The case could present no difficulty at all were it not for the unmistakable allusion to Peter (petros, a loose stone) as in some way associated with petra, the bedrock or foundation. But in the light of other Scriptures this allusion presents no difficulty; for all the apostles were such stones, and were closely allied to the foundation ( Eph_2:19-22, Gal_2:9). Compare also 1Pe_2:3-8. The Christian religion in all its redemptive completeness rests and can rest on no other [412] foundation than Christ ( 1Co_3:11). But the church or kingdom of Christ among men rests organically and constitutionally upon a foundation of apostolic authority, for the apostles were the mouthpieces of the Holy Spirit; but in this apostolic foundation the other apostles had equal rights, each one of them becoming a living foundation stone as soon as his faith led him to make a like confession with Simon Peter. Hence we find the apostle Paul asserting the superior authority of the apostles to all other Christian teachers and workers ( 1Co_12:28), and times without number asserting his apostolic office and authority-- 1Co_9:1, 1Co_9:2, 2Co_12:12, 2Co_13:1-4, Gal_1:1, Gal_1:8, Eph_3:1-6, Phm_1:8, Phm_1:9.] 19 I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. [Continuing his metaphorical language, Jesus promised to Peter the keys; i. e., the authority to lay down the rules or laws (under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, however) for admission to or exclusion from the kingdom or church. This office was, of course, given to Peter in a secondary sense, since it must ever belong to Christ in a primary sense ( Rev_3:7). The figure of key-bearer is taken from Isa_22:22. Peter used the keys on the day of Pentecost to open the church to the Jews, and about seven years afterward, at Cæsarea Palestinæ, he used them again to admit the Gentiles. In fixing the terms of admission, he also fixed the terms of exclusion, for all who are not admitted are excluded. The keys as used by Peter have never been changed; that is to say, the terms of admission abide forever. Plurality of keys is merely part of the parabolic drapery, since cities were accustomed to have several gates, thus requiring a plurality of keys. The kingdom was not opened to Jews and Gentiles by different keys, since both were admitted on the same terms. The words "bind" and "loose" were commonly used among the Jews in the sense of forbid and allow. Abundant instances of this usage have been collected by Lightfoot. They relate to the binding and annulling of laws and rules. [413] In this sense the word for loose, is used very many times in the New Testament, but it is translated by the word break or broken ( Mat_5:19, Joh_7:23, Joh_10:35). The power here given to Peter was soon after extended to the rest of the apostles ( Mat_18:18). The apostles were to lay down, as they afterward did, the organic law of the new kingdom, defining what things were prohibited and what permitted. Their actions in this behalf would of course be ratified in heaven, because they were none other than the acts of the Holy Spirit expressed through the apostles.] b30 And a20 Then c21 But acharged he the disciples cand commanded them to tell this to no man; bthat they should tell no man of him. athat he was the Christ. [The people were not ready to receive this truth, nor were the apostles sufficiently instructed to rightly proclaim it. Their heads were full of wrong ideas with regard to Christ's work and office, and had they been permitted to teach about him, they would have said that which it would have been necessary for them to subsequently correct, thus producing confusion.]

[FFG 410-414]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

18–21. Whom say the people that I am? See notes on Peter's confession of faith, Matt. 16:13–20; also Mark 8:27–30. Luke only informs us that he was alone praying, his disciples being present, when he asked the question.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

Jesus is praying, with only his disciples near him, and they begin to talk about who Jesus is. Jesus tells them that he will soon die and resurrect and urges them to follow him even if it becomes very hard to do that.

It came about

This phrase is used here to mark the beginning of a new event. (See: Introduction of a New Event)

praying by himself

"praying alone." The disciples were with Jesus, but he was praying personally and privately by himself.

John the Baptist

It may be helpful to restate part of the question here. AT: "Some say you are John the Baptist" (See: Ellipsis)

that one of the prophets from long ago has risen

It may be helpful to clarify how this answer relates to Jesus' question. AT: "that you are one of the prophets from long ago and have risen" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

has risen

"has come back to life"

translationWords

pray

disciple

John (the Baptist)

Elijah

prophet

raise

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

18–22. ST PETER’S CONFESSION. CHRIST PROPHESIES HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION

18. κατὰ μόνας. ‘In private,’ as the context shews.

οἱ ὄχλοι. ‘The multitudes’; those whom Jesus had taught and healed and fed, or those who seem to have been always at no great distance. The two other Evangelists place this memorable scene in the neighbourhood of Caesarea Philippi. His life at this epoch had come to resemble a continuous flight. He did not enter Caesarea Philippi. He always avoided towns (with the single exception of Jerusalem), probably from His love for the sights and sounds of nature, and His dislike for the crowded squalor and worldly absorption of town-communities; and He specially avoided these Hellenic and hybrid cities (Jos. Vit. 13), with their idolatrous ornaments and corrupted population. This event may well be regarded as the culminating point in His ministry. He had now won the deliberate faith and conviction of those who had lived in close intercourse with Him, and who, in continuation of His ministry, were to evangelize the world. See Mat 16:13-21; Mar 8:27-31. The depth and sincerity of the confession was more strongly tested by the fact that it was made, not in the joyous spring of the Galilean ministry, but in the year of persecution which drove our Lord into semi-heathen districts.

εἶναι. “That I, the Son of man, am?” Mat 16:13.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18-26.] Confession of Peter. First announcement of the Passion and Resurrection. Mat 16:13-28. Mar 8:27-1. The Lord had gone into the neighbourhood of Cæsarea Philippi: see notes on Matthew.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18-22. The Confession of Peter and First Announcement of the Passion. Mat 16:13-21; Mar 8:27-31. No connexion with the miracle just related is either stated or implied. Lk. omits the sequel of the miracle, the peremptory dismissal of the disciples and gradual dismissal of the people, the storm, the walking on the sea, the discourse on the Bread of Life, the Syrophenician woman, the Ephphatha miracle, the feeding of the four thousand, the forgetting to take bread, and the healing of a blind man at Bethsaida Julias (Mat 14:22-12; Mar 6:45-26; Joh 6:14-71). Can he then have seen either Mt. or Mk.? So also here: both the others mention that the incident took place near Cæsarea Philippi, on the confines of heathenism. Lk. mentions no place. It is a desperate expedient to suppose with Reuss, that the copy of Mk. which Lk. knew chanced to omit these sections. From ver. 18 to ver. 50 Lk. is once more parallel in the main to be other two.

18. καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτὸν προσευχόμενον. See note at end of ch. 1. and on 3:21. For the periphrastic infinitive comp. 11:1, and Burton., § 97. Jesus Patrem rogarat, ut discipulis se revelaret. Nam argumentum precum Jesu colligi potest ex seramous actionibusque insecutis; 6:12, 13 (Beng.).

κατὰ μόνας. Perhaps χώρας was originally understood. But the expression is used as a simple adv. and is sometimes written as one word, καταμόνας. In N.T. only here and Mar 4:10. In LXX Ps. 4:9, 32:15; Jer 15:17; Lam 3:28.

συνῆσαν αὐτῷ οἱ μαθηταί. This almost amounts to a contradiction of what precedes. “When He was alone praying, His disciples were with Him.” “Alone” no doubt means “in private,” or “in a solitary spot,” and may be taken with σύῆσαν: so that the contradiction is only on the surface. Moreover we are perhaps to understand that His prayer was solitary: His disciples did not join in it. In either case κατὰ μόνας is quite intelligible, although the disciples may have been close to Him. But it is possible that the true reading is συνήντησσν, meaning, “His disciples met Him, fell in with Him,” as He was engaged in prayer. This is the reading of B*, which a later scribe has corrected to συνῆσαν. And B* is here supported by the Old Latin f (occurrerunt) and one excellent cursive (157), besides two less important authorities. Nevertheless, it is on the whole more probable that συνήντησαν is an early attempt to get rid of the apparent contradiction involved in κατὰ μόνας συνησσαν. See Expositor, 3rd series, iv. p. 159. Elsewhere in N.T. συνεῖναι occurs only Act 22:11.

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

As he was praying. Peculiar to Luke.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.