“I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” And He was also saying to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out. And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out that way. You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time? And why do you not even on your own initiative judge what is right? For while you are going with your opponent to appear before the magistrate, on your way there make an effort to settle with him, so that he may not drag you before the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. I say to you, you will not get out of there until you have paid the very last cent.” (12:49–59)

Unarguably, history’s most infamous example of missed opportunity is Judas Iscariot. He had the privilege, granted only to eleven other men, of living and traveling with, and experiencing for three years the presence of Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory incarnate. Yet inconceivably, after that intense personal companionship with the incomparably perfect Son of God, observing daily all the miracles He performed and hearing His unparalleled teaching, Judas betrayed Him and sold Him out for a paltry sum. Against the pure glory of Jesus, Judas appears as the most profoundly wretched man who ever walked on earth. Jesus pronounced his doom when He said of him, “Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born” (Matt. 26:24). Judas, who on earth knew intimately the Lord of heaven, will spend eternity away from His presence in hell, relentlessly tormented by his accusing conscience and the memory of his wasted opportunity. But it is the nature of hell that, though those who suffer without relief regret their pain, they do not change their attitude toward the One they rejected.

While in a personal sense Judas is unique, in a categorical sense he is not. There were many Judases in Jesus’ day, if not in degree, then certainly in kind. There were many who rejected Him after being exposed to His teaching, seeing His miracles, and witnessing His perfectly holy life. That generation in Israel was the most privileged one in all of human history, being the only one to have God incarnate walk among them. But it was a Judas generation that rejected Jesus despite being eyewitnesses to massive, irrefutable evidence of who He was. The most privileged generation in human history became its most tragic example of wasted opportunity.

Every generation since, including our own, has had its share of Judases. There have always been many who, though exposed to the monumental evidence that clearly reveals Jesus’ true identity, refuse to believe. Like Judas, they too will suffer the most severe eternal consequences for wasting their opportunity (cf. Heb. 10:26–31). In this passage Jesus addressed a warning to all such people.

The Jewish messianic expectation, based on their understanding of the Old Testament, was that the Messiah’s arrival would usher in unparalleled peace. One of the most well-known messianic passages calls Messiah the “Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6). Isaiah 55:12 promised that the nation would be “led forth with peace” in Messiah’s kingdom (cf. 66:12; Ps. 72:7; Ezek. 34:25), when God promised to make an everlasting covenant of peace with them (Ezek. 37:26).

In the New Testament Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, expressed his confident hope that Messiah would “guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:79). In John 14:27 Jesus promised His followers, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful” (cf. 16:33). Quoting Isaiah 57:19 Paul wrote that Messiah “came and preached peace to [those] who were far away, and peace to those who were near” (Eph. 2:17), and added in Colossians 1:20 that He made that peace “through the blood of His cross” (cf. Luke 2:14; Acts 10:36; Rom. 5:1).

Tragically, Israel forfeited the peace that God had promised when they rejected the Messiah through whom it was to be realized. There could be no national or worldwide peace until Messiah set up His earthly kingdom that was a future reality. In the meantime as redemptive history unfolds, the gospel offers personal peace that comes from salvation only through faith in Jesus. Having rejected the Prince of Peace, Israel had no hope for His kingdom of peace. Neither was there any hope for personal peace.

As noted in chapter 10 of this volume, chapter 12 of Luke’s gospel marks a turning point in our Lord’s ministry. By now the majority of the Jewish people were hardened in their rejection of Him, and His ministry became largely one of warning. Beginning with the concluding verses of this chapter, those warnings became increasingly urgent and frequent (vv. 56, 59; cf. 13:3, 5, 9, 24–30, 35, 14:24; 19:41–44). In this passage Jesus gave three warnings concerning missed opportunity. He warned of the certainty of coming judgment, the reality of present strife, and the danger of lacking discernment.

THE CERTAINTY OF COMING JUDGMENT

“I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! (12:49–50)

The gospel divides all of humanity into two categories, both for time and eternity: the saved and the lost; the redeemed and the unredeemed; those who will spend eternity in heaven, and those who will spend it in hell.

The phrase I have come is a technical term used in several places by the Lord to speak of His mission, which He defined in Luke 19:10 when He said that “the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (cf. Matt. 9:13). “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets,” He cautioned, “I did not come to abolish but to fulfill” (Matt. 5:17). In John 5:43 Jesus declared to the hostile Jewish leaders, “I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him.” Jesus told those listening to His discourse on the bread of life, “I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 6:38). Jesus is the good shepherd, who “came that [His sheep might] have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). He came “as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in [Him] will not remain in darkness” (John 12:46); He “did not come to judge the world, but to save the world” (v. 47). On the night before His death Jesus said to the Twelve, “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father” (John 16:28). He told Pilate, “For this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth” (John 18:37).

Although He came to save the lost, Jesus’ mission was also one of judgment; He came to cast fire upon the earth. Fire is used frequently in Scripture as a picture of God’s judgment (e.g., Deut. 32:22; 2 Sam. 22:9; Pss. 21:9; 78:21; 97:3; Isa. 26:11; 29:6; 30:33; 66:15–16; Jer. 4:4; 15:14; 21:12; Lam. 2:3–4; 4:11; Ezek. 21:31; 22:21, 31; Amos 1:4, 7, 10, 12, 14; 2:2, 5; 5:6; Nah. 1:6; Luke 3:9, 16–17; 2 Thess. 1:7–8; Heb. 10:27). The Jewish people were familiar with the Old Testament’s predictions of God’s fiery judgment, but they believed it would fall on the Gentiles. They never expected that, at Messiah’s coming, judgment would fall on them. But Jesus came to save only the lost sinners who repent and believe, and to judge those who refuse to do so, Jew or Gentile. “For judgment I came into this world,” He said, “so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind” (John 9:39; cf. 5:22–30).

Just as fire not only consumes what is combustible, but also purifies what is not, the gospel is a fire that either purges or punishes. Those who believe, it purges; those who reject, it consumes (John 3:18). It is “to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life” (2 Cor. 2:16).

The Lord’s exclamation, How I wish it were already kindled indicates that the judgment to which He referred was yet to take place. The event that would kindle the fire of judgment was His death, which Jesus described as a baptism He had to undergo. Baptism refers to His immersion under divine judgment (cf. Mark 10:38); before He judged unbelievers for their sin, Christ Himself was judged by God for the sins of believers. That took place at the cross when He “redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13; cf. Isa. 53:5–6, 11–12; Rom. 4:25; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24). In that verse Paul expressed the essential, non-negotiable doctrine of penal substitution, which “states that God gave Himself in the person of his Son to suffer instead of us the death, punishment and curse due to fallen humanity as the penalty for sin. This understanding of the cross of Christ stands at the very heart of the gospel” (Jeffrey, Steve, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach, Pierced for Our Transgressions [Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2007], 21).

So appalling for the sinless Son of God was the thought of bearing sin and being separated from the Father that He exclaimed, How distressed I am until it is accomplished! Although Gethsemane was the most agonizing time of anticipation, Jesus lived His life in a perpetual Gethsemane. There was never a time when He was not aware of the suffering that lay before Him. Distressed translates a form of the verb sunechomai, which has the basic meaning of being seized, gripped (as with fear), or under the control of something. It is used in Luke 8:37 to speak of the Gerasenes being “gripped with great fear” after Jesus cast out demons into a herd of pigs. In Luke 19:43 it refers to Jerusalem being hemmed in by the Romans during the siege of A.D. 70; in Luke 22:63 it is used of the men holding Jesus, and in 2 Corinthians 5:14 of Christ’s love controlling believers. In Philippians 1:23 Paul used it when he wrote to the Philippians that he was “hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better,” but realized that “to remain on in the flesh [was] more necessary for their sake” (v. 24). The distress of Christ as He agonized in the garden was not a sign of weakness, but of absolute, pure holiness being revealed by the thoughts of bearing sin and divine judgment. It was the only possible response. How could the sinless Son not be distressed in agony so that He sweated blood!

Accomplished translates a form of the same verb used of Jesus’ triumphant cry from the cross, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). In my commentary on that verse I noted,

The Lord was hard-pressed between the suffering and the purpose; between the pain and the plan; between enduring the cross “for the joy set before Him” (Heb. 12:2) and desiring to be restored to the glory that He had had in the Father’s presence before coming into the world (John 17:5); between His own will and the Father’s. Yet He never wavered, and at the end said in the garden, “Not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

THE REALITY OF PRESENT STRIFE

Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (12:51–53)

The dividing that the gospel of Christ brings is for both time and eternity. In this discourse Jesus gave a parable involving just and unjust servants that illustrated eternal separation (see the exposition of 12:41–48 in the previous chapter of this volume). The faithful steward represents those who are ready for Christ’s return; who are obedient to the gospel, believe in Jesus, confess Him as Lord, and are saved (Rom. 10:9). They will be rewarded with blessedness forever in heaven. The unfaithful stewards (whether defiant, distracted, or ignorant) represent unbelievers, who do not believe in Jesus, accept the gospel, or repent. They will be sentenced to varying degrees of eternal, conscious punishment in hell.

But how they respond to Jesus will not only divide people in eternity, but also in time, as the Lord’s rhetorical question, Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division, reveals (cf. Matt. 10:34). It was reasonable for the Jewish people, based on the Old Testament teaching noted earlier in this chapter, to suppose that Messiah would bring peace. But Jesus told them that He came not to bring peace, but rather division. When there is no peace between sinners and God, there will be no peace between people, but rather strife and conflict.

To illustrate His point Jesus chose society’s most fundamental unit, the family (cf. a similar illustration in Micah 7:6). He often used the phrase from now on to describe something that was beginning, and would continue to be that way in the future (e.g., Matt. 23:39; 26:29; Luke 5:10; 22:69; John 8:11; 13:19; 14:7). Jesus, who came as the Prince of Peace to reconcile sinners to God (2 Cor. 5:18–20), was and would continue to be, at the same time, the great divider (cf. John 7:43; 9:16; 10:19).

In the Lord’s hypothetical illustration five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law. (Six members of the household are named, but there are only five individuals, since the mother of the son and the mother-in-law of the daughter-in-law [her son’s wife] are the same person.) This illustration has played out innumerable times in real families since Jesus’ day. The offense of the gospel often causes those who reject and hate it to make outcasts of even family members who believe it. In Matthew 10:21 Jesus revealed how far family division over Him could go: “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.” But He made the following comforting promise to those who lose their earthly families because of the gospel: “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life” (Matt. 19:29).

THE DANGER OF LACKING DISCERNMENT

And He was also saying to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out. And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out that way. You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time? And why do you not even on your own initiative judge what is right? For while you are going with your opponent to appear before the magistrate, on your way there make an effort to settle with him, so that he may not drag you before the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. I say to you, you will not get out of there until you have paid the very last cent.” (12:54–59)

These two illustrations are a strong warning to those whose lack of discernment puts them in danger of missing out on salvation. The Jewish people, in particular their religious leaders, viewed themselves as being “a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth” (Rom. 2:19–20). Yet they failed to discern the monumental and unparalleled reality that God’s Son the Messiah was among them and proved who He was by an incalculable array of supernatural miracles. That shocking lack of discernment in the face of such evidence rendered them permanently blind, darkened, foolish, and immature. They had failed to comprehend the true purpose of the law, which is to point people to Christ (Gal. 3:24), and they failed to confess Him as Lord (Rom. 10:9–10). In these analogies Jesus rebuked them for two things: failing to discern the time, and failing to discern the threat.

FAILING TO DISCERN THE TIME

And He was also saying to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out. And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out that way. You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time? (12:54–56)

The people of Jesus’ day lacked the tools of modern meteorologists, such as satellite photos, Doppler radar, and sophisticated computer forecasting models. Yet through making simple observations on familiar patterns, they were able to make accurate short-term weather predictions. “When you see a cloud rising in the west, Jesus reminded them, “immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out.” Rain generally enters Israel from clouds that form over the Mediterranean Sea to the west. When the people noticed a cloud rising in the west they correctly surmised, as did Elijah (1 Kings 18:44–45), that a shower was coming. They also understood that when there was a south wind blowing from off the deserts in that direction it would be a hot day.

Then the Lord applied those two illustrations to His hearers. You hypocrites!, He said, You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time? Jesus often referred to the Jewish people, especially their religious leaders, as hypocrites (e.g., 13:15; Matt. 6:2, 5, 16; 7:5; 15:7; 22:18; 23:13, 15,23, 25, 27, 28, 29). Their spirituality was false; their allegiance to God a sham; their virtue superficial; their religion external; their hearts evil.

At first glance, the connection between predicting the weather and hypocrisy may not be readily apparent. But Christ’s point is that they were able to routinely reach weather conclusions based on far less evidence than His unparalleled words (Matt. 7:28–29; John 7:46), supernatural works (John 10:25), and sinless life (John 8:46) provided. That evidence conclusively proved Jesus was the Messiah, God incarnate. Their hypocrisy in this instance was in pretending not to have enough evidence to convince them that Jesus was who He claimed to be and demanding more signs from Him (see the discussion of that point in chapter 8 of this volume).

The Jewish people rejected Jesus not because they lacked evidence, but because He was not a military leader overthrowing their enemies and exalting Israel. They also deeply resented His diagnosis of their spiritual condition and saw His claim to be God as blasphemy. When He described them as spiritually impoverished, captive, blind, and oppressed (Luke 4:18), the spiritually proud Jews in the synagogue of His hometown of Nazareth

In John 8:37 He declared to the hostile Jewish religious leaders, “You seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.” His claim to be God led them to attempt to stone Him (John 8:58–59; 10:31). John 1:11 notes that Christ “came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him,” because “the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil” (3:19).

The people and their leaders had all the light they needed (cf. John 12:35), but chose to reject it. Their spiritual blindness and the judgment it would bring moved the Savior to tears:

Failing to properly recognize the present time caused them to miss their opportunity (cf. Gen. 6:3; Heb. 6:4–6). Although thousands of individuals would later believe in Jesus and be converted (cf. Acts 2:41; 4:4), the nation as a whole rejected Him then and continues to do so. Israel’s failure to discern the times resulted in catastrophic judgment on the nation, which came in A.D. 70 at the hands of the Romans and continues until now. Zechariah prophesied that the judgment on the Jewish nation will not be lifted until they repent and embrace Jesus Christ as Lord (Zech. 12:10).

FAILING TO DISCERN THE THREAT

And why do you not even on your own initiative judge what is right? For while you are going with your opponent to appear before the magistrate, on your way there make an effort to settle with him, so that he may not drag you before the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. I say to you, you will not get out of there until you have paid the very last cent.”(12:57–59)

Jesus’ question, Why do you not even on your own initiative judge what is right? was a challenge for each person there to examine his or her life. Specifically, He called them to judge what is right, by examining their lives with reference to sin. By way of illustration, Jesus chose a situation they would all have been familiar with. He asked them to picture themselves going with their opponent to appear before the magistrate on a legal matter, presumably involving a financial debt. The archōn (magistrate) was the official who conducted the preliminary hearing. If he found sufficient cause to proceed with the case, he would turn it over to the judge who, if he found the accused guilty, would turn him over to the officer in charge of the debtor’s prison, and the officer would throw him into prison. If that happened, Jesus warned, they would not get out of there until they had paid the very last cent.

The Lord’s point is that those who properly assess themselves will discern their issues of guilt before they stand before the judge and he settles them. In a spiritual sense, this pictures sinners on their way to the great white throne judgment, where they will be found guilty and sentenced to eternal punishment in hell (Rev. 20:11–15). Jesus urges them to carefully discern the horrendous threat of that judgment and embrace the gospel message before it is too late. As the writer of Hebrews warns, “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27).

In the face of this terrifying reality God offers the good news of salvation—free and complete pardon to all who believe in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:18–20; Col. 2:13–14; 1 Peter 2:24). Those who accept that pardon and trust in Him will never face judgment (John 5:24; Rom. 5:1; 8:1), since He bore God’s just wrath against all the sins of all who would ever believe and fully satisfied the demands of God’s justice (Rom. 3:26; 2 Cor. 5:21). God showed His approval of that accomplishment by raising Him from the dead (1 Thess. 1:10). As John Calvin eloquently wrote, “By His obedience, He has wiped off our transgressions; by His sacrifice, appeased the divine anger; by His blood, washed away our sins; by His cross, borne our curse; and by His death, made satisfaction for us” (“Calvin’s Reply to Sadoleto,” in John C. Olin, ed., A Reformation Debate [Reprint; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976], 66–67). Therefore sinners can confidently heed the call to “seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near” (Isa. 55:6; cf. 2 Cor. 6:2), trusting in Jesus’ promise that “the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37).