32  A Mission of Mercy  (Luke 9:51–56)

When the days were approaching for His ascension, He was determined to go to Jerusalem; and He sent messengers on ahead of Him, and they went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make arrangements for Him. But they did not receive Him, because He was traveling toward Jerusalem. When His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”And they went on to another village. (9:51–56)

Mercy is a word filled with loveliness. To say that someone is merciful is to pay them the highest of compliments; it is to characterize them as loving, compassionate, tender, forgiving, selfless, caring, and protective. In contrast merciless people are vicious, vengeful, deadly, destructive, hate others, and wish them only evil.

Both the Old Testament and the New Testament extol the value of mercy Proverbs 3:3 ranks mercy with truth—which God has magnified according to His name (cf. Ps. 138:2). While divine truth is of supremevalue, it must be balanced with mercy God is truth (Ps. 31:5; Isa. 65:16), but He exalts mercy to the degree that truth is exalted. If that were not true, His truth would instantaneously crush sinners. Reflecting God’s mercy, believers are charged to speak the truth, not harshly or impatiently, but in love (Eph. 4:15). Scripture also emphasizes the importance of mercy by linking it with justice (Hos. 12:6 NKJV; Zech. 7:9 NKJV).

Mercy is also beneficial. Solomon noted that “the merciful man does himself good, but the cruel man does himself harm” (Prov. 11:17). David expressed that same principle when he wrote, “How blessed is he who considers the helpless; the Lord will deliver him in a day of trouble” (Ps. 41:1). Daniel counseled King Nebuchadnezzar, “Break away now from your sins by doing righteousness and from your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, in case there may be a prolonging of your prosperity” (Dan. 4:27). In the Beatitudes Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” (Matt. 5:7).

To show mercy is to imitate God (cf. Eph. 5:1), who is merciful. David called Him “a God merciful and gracious” (Ps. 86:15). Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, spoke of “the tender mercy of our God” (Luke 1:78). Paul described God as “the Father of mercies” (2 Cor. 1:3), who is “rich in mercy” (Eph. 2:4), while the writer of Hebrews described the Lord Jesus Christ as “a merciful and faithful high priest” (Heb.2:17).

Christians are commanded to show mercy In Luke 6:36 Jesus instructed believers, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful,” while James cautioned that those who fail to show mercy will face God’s judgment, since “judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13).

Mercy may be defined as unconditional love reaching out to meet a person’s need without thought of whether he or she deserves it. It is compassionate kindness that does good to people simply because they are in need. Mercy is activated by the suffering of others, and grants them loving-kindness because of their desperate condition. The supreme New Testament illustration of mercy is the story of the prodigal son. After squandering his inheritance by his profligate, sinful living, he was forgiven and welcomed home by his merciful father and extended mercy to relieve his terrible condition. In an Old Testament illustration of mercy, 2 Kings 6:11–23 recounts the story of some Aramean soldiers whom Elisha struck with blindness and led captive into the city of Samaria. The king of Israel wanted to execute them, but instead Elisha commanded him to prepare a feast for the soldiers and then set them free (vv. 22–23). In a world where vengeance is considered a virtue, the people of God must be characterized by mercy

This passage records the first incident on the Lord’s lengthy journey to Jerusalem (see the discussion below). Jesus seized the opportunity provided by a Samaritan village’s rejection of Him to teach His disciples a riveting and unforgettable lesson on mercy. It is the perfect follow-up to the lesson on humility He had taught them in the previous section (see the discussion of 9:46–50 in chapter 31 of this volume), since only the humble are merciful. Though this is a brief narrative account that never mentions the word mercy, it is implicit in our Lord’s attitude that He has come to extend this priceless treasure to those in desperate need, but do not deserve it. As Jesus heads toward Jerusalem, it is to provide mercy by His death; as He enters a Samaritan village, it is also to extend mercy

MERCY MADE AVAILABLE

When the days were approaching for His ascension, He was determined to go to Jerusalem; (9:51)

The phrase when the days signifies that an indefinite period of time had passed since the incident recorded in 9:46–50. However this incident probably did not take place too long afterward. It marks a major turning point in Luke’s narrative of Christ’s life and ministry. Up to this point, Luke has focused on Jesus’ coming, detailing the angelic announcement of His birth to Mary the account of His birth, the incident in the temple when He was twelve, His baptism by John, His temptation by Satan, and the first two and a half years of His ministry as Messiah, reaching its pinnacle at the transfiguration.

But at this point, the whole tenor of Luke’s gospel changes. The focus is no longer on Jesus’ coming, but on His going. The Galilean ministry is over, and He is on His way for the final time to His passion in Jerusalem. Although the Lord would, in the few intervening months of His Judean ministry, make brief return visits to Galilee (e.g., 17:11–37), Galilee was no longer His base of operations. Much of the material in this travelogue (cf.vv.52, 57; 10:1, 38; 13:22, 33; 17:11; 18:35; 19:1, 11, 28–29) of Christ’s final journey to the cross (9:51–19:27) is unique to Luke’s gospel. Of the other gospel writers, only John records features from the months in Judea (John 7–11).

Immediately after the revelation of His glory and majesty at the transfiguration, the Lord warned His disciples, “Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men” (9:44). From the exaltation of the transfiguration, Jesus took the Twelve through the valley of humiliation that culminated in His death. Although Jerusalem was only a couple of days’ walk from Galilee, Jesus did not go directly there. But although He took months to traverse the region of Judea with a final stop in Perea (Luke 18; cf. Matt. 19–20; Mark 10), all the while He was inexorably focused on arriving in Jerusalem at Passover—the appointed time for the Lamb of God’s sacrificial death. Along the way Christ’s primary focus was not on the crowds, but on training the first generation of gospel preachers, the apostles whom He had chosen to carry on His ministry after He departed for heaven.

Sumplēroō (approaching) literally means, “to be fulfilled,” or “completed.” God’s plan of redemption was to be fulfilled by Christ’s going to Jerusalem to die as a sacrifice for sin, and He always operated on a divinely prewritten timetable (cf. Luke 13:31–33; John 7:8, 30; 8:20). In Gethsemane Jesus rebuked Peter for his valiant but wrongheaded attempt to prevent His arrest, asking him, “How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?” (Matt. 26:54; cf. v. 56; Luke 22:37). On the road to Emmaus after His resurrection, Jesus reminded two of His disciples, “All things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). Peter declared to the Jewish people that “the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled” (Acts 3:18), while Paul told the Gentiles in Pisidian Antioch, “Those who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, recognizing neither [Jesus] nor the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning Him”(Acts 13:27).

Some limit ascension (lit., “lifting up”) to Jesus’ death on the cross, connecting this passage with His declaration, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (John 3:14; cf. 8:28; 12:32). But while the noun analēmpsis (ascension) appears only here in the New Testament, the related verb analambanō is used of Christ’s ascension in Acts 1:2, 11, 22, and 1 Timothy 3:16. It seems that Luke’s use of the term here encompasses the entire sequence of events from the cross, through the resurrection, to the actual ascension into glory (Acts 1:9–11).

Sterizō (determined) describes something that is fixed, immovable, or firmly established. It expresses Christ’s unshakable, unwavering resolve to go to Jerusalem and endure the shame of the cross with its suffering, rejection, and bearing of God’s wrath against sin. In the words of the writer of Hebrews, Jesus “for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God”(Heb. 12:2; cf.Phil.2:9–11).

The heart of the Lord Jesus Christ’s mission was mercy which Jude described as “the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life” (Jude 21). He was on a mission of mercy to Jerusalem to die as the only way undeserving sinners could receive divine mercy to redeem them from sin and eternal hell.

MERCY EXTENDED TO ALL

and He sent messengers on ahead of Him, and they went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make arrangements for Him. But they did not receive Him, because He was traveling toward Jerusalem. When His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”And they went on to another village. (9:52–56)

In contrast to Matthew, whose focus is primarily on Jesus’ ministry to the Jewish people, Luke is much more expansive. He described the universal scope of redemption and emphasized that salvation was available to everyone, not just the Jews, but also the Gentiles (cf. Acts 10:34–48; 14:24–27; 15:12–19). He himself was a Gentile, and he wrote to Theophilus, (1:3), who was also a Gentile. Not only did Luke view the gospel as being for all ethnic groups, including Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles, but also for all types of people within those groups, including women (even prostitutes), outcasts (including lepers), those possessed by demons, even despised tax collectors (cf. 7:36–50; 10:25–37; 15:11–32; 16:19–31; 8:2, 27–38; 17:11–19; 19:1–10). Luke’s emphasis on the gospel’s universal appeal is also evident in his genealogy of Jesus. Matthew began his genealogy with Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, but Luke traced Christ’s genealogy all the way back to Adam, the father of the entire human race.

Jesus needed to teach His disciples the inclusive character of the gospel of mercy, and the first incident on their journey to Jerusalem provided such a teaching opportunity. Surprisingly, the Lord chose to travel through Samaria, which most Jews took great pains to avoid doing. Jews traveling from Galilee to Judea would cross to the east side of the Jordan River, travel south through Perea, and then recross the river at Jericho and go up into Judea. Those who did travel through Samaria carried their own food so as not to have to eat food defiled by the unclean and despised Samaritans.

The animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans dated back several centuries before the time of Christ. After the northern kingdom (Israel) was defeated by the Assyrians, the ten northern tribes of

Those Gentile foreigners intermarried with the Jews who had not been deported, forming a mixed race known as the Samaritans (the name derives from the region and capital city of the northern part of the divided kingdom, both called Samaria). The new arrivals brought their idolatrous false religion with them (2 Kings 17:29–31), which became mixed with the worship of the true God (vv. 25–28, 32–33; 41). Eventually the Samaritans abandoned their idols and worshiped Yahweh alone, after their own convoluted fashion (for example, they accepted only the Pentateuch as canonical Scripture, and worshiped God on Mt. Gerizim, not at Jerusalem). This is the background of our Lord’s encounter with the Samaritan woman, recorded in John 4:7–42.

When the Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem under Ezra and Nehemiah, their first priority was to rebuild the temple. Claiming to be loyal to Israel’s God, the Samaritans offered to help (Ezra 4:1–2). But the Jews bluntly rejected their offer (Ezra 4:3), which enraged the Samaritans, who then became their bitter enemies (Ezra 4:4ff.; Neh. 4:1–3, 7ff.). Barred from worshiping at Jerusalem, the Samaritans built their own temple on Mt. Gerizim (c.400 B.C.). The Jews later destroyed that temple during the intertestamental period, which further worsened relations between the two groups.

Centuries of mistrust produced a deep animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans. The writer of the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus expressed the scorn and contempt the Jews felt for the Samaritans when he derisively referred to them as “the stupid people living at Shechem” (50:25–26). The Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day exhibited that same prejudice. The worst insult they could think of to hurl at Jesus was to call Him a Samaritan (John 8:48). The Samaritans, of course, reciprocated the Jews’ hostility, as in this encounter.

But the Lord’s mission of saving mercy transcended all racial and cultural boundaries. He was willing to go to where the hate-filled Jewish religious leaders would kill Him, and to go to a Samaritan town that those same leaders would never dream of going to. Therefore He sent messengers on ahead of Him, and they went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make arrangements for food and lodging for Him and those who accompanied Him. The Lord Jesus Christ was mercy incarnate, reaching out even to people despised by His fellow Jews to offer the hope of salvation.

Not surprisingly, the Samaritan village did not receive Jesus. But that rejection was not of Him personally; they knew nothing of His miraculous power and divine teaching. They did not even reject Him solely because He was Jewish. Instead, the Samaritans rejected Jesus because He was traveling toward Jerusalem to worship at the temple. As noted above, the Maccabean ruler John Hyrcanus had destroyed the Samaritan temple on Mt. Gerizim during the intertestamental period, and it had never been rebuilt. The Samaritans, clinging to their own religious system despite the lack of a temple, refused to recognize the Jerusalem temple as a proper place of worship. Thus, they rejected all who worshiped there.

Incensed at this blatant insult to their Master, when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”

The two brothers, to whom Jesus “gave the name Boanerges, which means, ‘Sons of Thunder’” (Mark 3:17) because of their volatile nature, wanted to incinerate the Samaritan village. What prompted them to propose that method of destruction is that Elijah had done something similar in that very region. King Ahaziah of the northern kingdom of Israel sent a company of fifty men to arrest him. However Elijah called down fire from heaven, which consumed them. A second company of fifty met the same fate. Finally, the commander of the third company begged Elijah to spare his life and the lives of his men. The prophet went with him to the king, upon whom he pronounced God’s judgment (2 Kings 1:9–16). James and John wanted to do the same to this insolent village.

Jesus, however, turned and rebuked them for their merciless attitude. To want to destroy those who reject the truth is not gospel ministry. The words and said, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” are not in the oldest manuscripts, indicating that somewhere in later history a scribe wanted to clarify the rebuke and borrowed from other texts. Nonetheless, the principle that Jesus came to save the lost is clearly taught in those borrowed passages (Luke 19:10; John 12:47).

Unlike His overly zealous disciples, the Lord Jesus Christ grants mercy to hostile, ignorant sinners, like the apostle Paul had been before his conversion (1 Tim. 1:13). As noted above, the Samaritans did not know who Jesus was or what He taught. They rejected Him not because He claimed to be Lord, Savior, and Messiah, but merely because He was a Jew traveling to the temple at Jerusalem. Mercy was the right response there, and judgment gives way to mercy on those who cease their hostility toward the truth. But when that hostility is continually fixed and persistent, mercy is withdrawn. For example, when He sent them out to preach the gospel, Jesus command the seventy,

Then He Himself pronounced judgment on hard-hearted rejecters of the truth:

But this was not the time of judgment for this village, so Jesus and those traveling with Him merely left and went on to another village. Because the Lord in His mercy spared them, perhaps some of these villagers later repented at the preaching of Philip the evangelist (Acts 8:6–8) and Peter and John (v.25) and were saved.

Although it must never compromise the truth or tolerate sin, the church must show the same mercy to the lost as Jesus did. Whenever those claiming to represent Jesus Christ have wielded the right to pronounce temporal judgment, the results have been disastrous. The Inquisition, the Crusades, the execution of those thought to be witches, and the persecution of the Anabaptists by Reformed Protestants and Catholics alike have been a blight on the name of Jesus Christ. The church must confront sin and call for repentance, but leave the final judgment to God (that is the point of the parable of the wheat and the tares [Matt. 13:24–30] and the indictment of Jesus on the Jewish leaders [Matt. 7:1–3]). Mercy is at the heart of redemptive ministry, and is to be extended to all without regard to race, gender, age, or cultural background. The God who delights in mercy (Mic. 7:18 NKJV) delights in merciful Christians (cf.2 Cor. 4:1).