Entering on this chapter I would observe that in the case of the poor sinner, which closes the preceding one, we see deep personal affection as the fruit of conscious forgiveness or healing; here, in this company of women, devoted attachment and service. In the poor sinner, all the hidden fountains are opened at the bidding of the grace of Christ. She knew that He had accepted her, sinner as she was, and this commanded her heart. It left her without an eye for the Pharisee's feast, or an ear for his scorning, for Jesus had drawn her apart from every thing; and to come near Him, as near as love and gratitude and worship could bring her, was all her concern. And at the same bidding of His healing love, this company of women attach themselves to Him. They follow to serve Him. Grateful love told itself out in her silently; in them it was busy. It would be with Him wherever He was, that it might give Him whatever it could minister.
Various fruit, but each blessed. And Jesus can understand both, and receive the secret tears of the one, and the active services of the other.
The beauty of either case would be sadly soiled, if these were not the fruit of conscious healing. What affection, what service, so pure as that which comes thence? The publican may smite on his breast in conscious guilt, and that in its place is surely a right and godly affection. But how are the beauty and the attractiveness of it outshone by the tears and services, the love and the devotedness, that spring and flow forth from conscious acceptance! nothing so precious to God, nothing so lovely even in our own thoughts, when we consider it for a moment. And, on the other hand, how sad when (instead of tears and services) self-satisfaction, high-mindedness, slight and contempt of others, or the mere unspiritual pursuit of knowledge and the busy competition of party, mark the heart and the ways. May we all, beloved, cherish these simple patterns which the Spirit here records, and which so meet the approving presence of the Lord"
This is the first of a series of chapters, in which we see the Lord, the Twelve, and the Seventy, in succession, going forth to minister (see Luke 8: 1; Luke 9: 1; Luke 10: 1); and this extended exhibition of ministry is all according to the grace of the Spirit in this Gospel. And as a further expression of the same grace, our evangelist tells us that the Lord went "throughout every city and village;" leaving no spot unvisited by His light and goodness. And this divine Minister of grace is attended by a suitable train. A company who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, and cleansed of devils, follow Him now to witness His grace; as, by-and-by, when He comes forth in power, He will have behind Him an equally suited train of shining ones to reflect His glory. Rev. 19: 14.
Luke then records the parable of the Sower, given to us also, we know, by both Matthew and Mark. No doubt it has the same general character and purpose in each Gospel; but I observe that the Lord here is not so careful, by directly quoting the prophet Isaiah, to apply the judgment of God to Israel; and this is still according to His mind in Luke.
In the progress of this chapter we get the case of the Gadarenes, of the woman with the issue of blood, and of Jairus's daughter, combined in the same way as in Mark.
On these and similar acts of power and goodness we may generally observe, that the Lord's ministry always bears these two characteristics upon it--He was ever judging the devil, but never the sinner. He went on blotting out the traces of the destructive power of the one, but leaving the traces of His own redeeming power on the other. By the very same stroke He did these two things. Every blind man made to see, every lame one made to walk, alike witnessed the judgment of the power of the enemy, and the blessing, of the sinner. When He cleansed the leper, when He raised the dead, this twofold testimony was given. And so the devil meets Him only to tremble, and the believing sinner only to take away a blessing and to take it always with a welcome. Let the Lord be doing what He may, or going where He may, did He ever allow the needy child of man to feel himself an intruder? Even His upbraidings cannot be called upbraidings. For what were they? They were only for want of confidence in Him--because the sinner did not come with sufficient boldness. He upbraided him, not for being too confident, but for not being confident enough. His language was after this manner, "Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?"
This was not upbraiding This was not repelling the sinner, but resenting his lingering and suspicions. Nothing can be surer, in the ways of the Son of God on earth, than these things, that He was ever judging the devil, but never the sinner. It was like Moses, who would go forth and smite an Egyptian; but if he himself were refused and insulted by an Israelite, he would go into exile, go where he might, unfriended and alone, rather than touch a hair of his head. Exodus 2. Or like Samson, another distinguished and honoured type, who will seek occasion against the Philistines, and even join affinity with them, just to plague and impoverish them, but will be as weak as a child if the men of Judah resist him. Judges 15: 12. Moses and Samson had strength enough against the enemy, but none against their own people; as the Son of God will judge the devil and all his works, but say of sinners, "I came not to judge," not "to destroy men's lives, but to save them." Luke 9: 56; John 12: 47.
So was it now. Gadara was a portion of the Jewish or sanctified earth. It was within that land on which the eyes of the God of heaven and earth rested from one end of the year to the other. Deut. 11: 12. But the unclean had long since entered that land and defiled it, and there we find them at this time in herds, as also the full display of the enemy's unbridled strength. Legion and the swine were in Gadara, to tell us what the place of Jehovah's choice had now become. It was the very palace of the strong man, but the Son of God now enters as the stronger, to do His proper work, to show Himself the Redeemer of the captive, and the destruction of the power of death.
But the feeders of the unclean swine in that place are not prepared for this. It was a trespass on them, and they would have Jesus depart from their coasts. Terrible indeed this is. Nothing that we see in all the history of the Gospel gives us such an expression of the dark and unclean region of Satan as this. With such a display of the grace and power of the Stronger Man in the midst of them, still they desire Him not, but would sell all their interest in the Son of God for a herd of swine. This was very awful; and Jesus has but to leave them, and to return across the lake of Galilee, to pursue His way in other scenes.
A Jewish ruler seeks Him, that He would come to his house, in behalf of his little only daughter, who there lay a-dying. He goes onward with the purpose of proving Himself, in the house of the Jew, the resurrection and the life; but His path thither is interrupted by the faith of a needy stranger, who touches Him in the crowd. She had a plague in her body. It was a kind of fretting leprosy, a fountain of uncleanness in her very flesh, which no skill of man could heal. In her extremity she hears of Jesus, and by a single touch, gets all that she needed. But no one knew her, or cared to know her. Both herself and her touching the Lord would have remained a secret in the busy crowd, only He Who heals her knows her, and owns her before them all. The multitude was thronging and pressing Him; but it was not need or sin that urged them, and therefore He feels it not. But her fainter touch was felt, because it was the touch of a consciously needy and defiled one, who had learnt to believe that there was virtue in Him. Her sorrow introduces her to Him, and He knows her because He had healed her. This was the ground and the character of their acquaintance; and the Son of God and the healed sinner thus meet together to be alone in the crowd--she a stranger to all but Him, and He treating as strangers all but her.
This is full of the truest and most solid consolation for our souls. But beside that, this path of the Lord is all full of meaning. It tells us what we know the path and action of the Son of God is to be. For He has before Him, in the distance, the day of His power in Israel, the house of the Jew, where He will make the dry bones live, and call His people from their dark and long sleep, as prisoners from the pit; but on His journey there, or during the present season, by the way, a stranger engages His sympathies, a poor, unnoticed one (save by Himself), whom conscious necessity had thrown in His way, like the Church of God, which alone occupies the Son of God, while on His way to display His power in resurrection and life in Israel in the latter day.
I judge this to be the character of what we get here. And thus, this chapter (which opens with the Lord going forth to His ministry) gives us these samples of the varied fruit of His toil both in the Church and in Israel; showing us also, as in Gadara, what a world it was into which He came to toil, that all His blessed travail might close in His own praise both in heaven and earth, the world's conviction and judgment, and the comfort of every sinner who will but trust in Him.
