Luke 21 commentary

LUKE 21 COMMENTARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
The Widow’s Offering
1 As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting
their gifts into the temple treasury.
GILL, "And he looked up,.... As Christ sat over against the treasury, looking upon
the ground, he lift up his eyes; for the treasury was not in an high place, or above
Christ, who was right against it. The Syriac, Arabic, and Persic versions leave out this
clause.
And saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury; See Gill on Mar_
12:41.
HENRY, "This short passage of story we had before in Mark. It is thus recorded
twice, to teach us, 1. That charity to the poor is a main matter in religion. Our Lord
Jesus took all occasions to commend it and recommend it. He had just mentioned
the barbarity of the scribes, who devoured poor widows (ch. 20); and perhaps this is
designed as an aggravation of it, that the poor widows were the best benefactors to
the public funds, of which the scribes had the disposal. 2. That Jesus Christ has his
eye upon us, to observe what we give to the poor, and what we contribute to works of
piety and charity. Christ, though intent upon his preaching, looked up, to see what
gifts were cast into the treasury, Luk_21:1. He observes whether we give largely and
liberally, in proportion to what we have, or whether we be sneaking and paltry in it;
nay, his eye goes further, he observes whether we give charitably and with a willing
mind, or grudgingly and with reluctance. This should make us afraid of coming short
of our duty in this matter; men may be deceived with excuses which Christ knows to
be frivolous. And this should encourage us to be abundant in it, without desiring that
men should know it; it is enough that Christ does; he sees in secret, and will reward
openly.
BARCLAY, "THE PRECIOUS GIFT (Luke 21:1-4)
21:1-4 Jesus looked up and saw those who were putting their gifts into the
treasury--rich people--and he saw a poor widow putting in two lepta. So he said,
"I tell you truly that this poor widow has put in more than all, for all these
contributed to the gifts out of their abundance, but she, out of her need, has put
in everything she had to live on."
In the Court of the Women in the Temple there were thirteen collecting boxes
known as the Trumpets. They were shaped like trumpets with the narrow part at
the top and the wider part at the foot. Each was assigned to offerings for a
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different purpose--for the wood that was used to burn the sacrifice, for the
incense that was burned on the altar, for the upkeep of the golden vessels, and so
on. It was near the Trumpets that Jesus was sitting.
After the strenuous debates with the emissaries of the Sanhedrin and the
Sadducees he was tired and his head drooped between his hands. He looked up
and he saw many people flinging their offerings into the Trumpets; and then
came a poor widow. All she had in the world was two lepta. A lepton (Greek #
3016) was the smallest of all coins; the name means "the thin one." It was worth
one fortieth of a new penny; and, therefore, the offering of the widow woman
was only one-twentieth of a new penny. But Jesus said that it far outvalued all
the other offerings, because it was everything she had.
Two things determine the value of any gift.
(i) There is the spirit in which it is given. A gift which is unwillingly extracted, a
gift which is given with a grudge, a gift that is given for the sake of prestige or of
self-display loses more than half its value. The only real gift is that which is the
inevitable outflow of the loving heart, that which is given because the giver
cannot help it.
(ii) There is the sacrifice which it involves. That which is a mere trifle to one man
may be a vast sum to another. The gifts of the rich, as they flung their offerings
into the Trumpets, did not really cost them much; but the two lepta (Greek #
3016) of the widow woman cost her everything she had. They no doubt gave
having nicely calculated how much they could afford; she gave with that utterly
reckless generosity which could give no more.
Giving does not begin to be real giving until it hurts. A gift shows our love only
when we have had to do without something or have had to work doubly hard in
order to give it. How few people give to God like that! Someone draws a picture
of a man in church, lustily singing,
Were the whole realm of Nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all,
while, all the time, he is carefully feeling the coins in his pocket to make sure that
it is 10 p and not 50 p that he will put into the collection which is immediately to
follow.
He is an insensate man who can read the story of the widow and her two lepta
without searching and humiliating self-examination.
COFFMAN, "Except for the first four verses detailing Luke's account of the
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widow and her two mites, this whole chapter recounts Jesus' Mount Olivet
discourse regarding the destruction of the temple, the destruction of Jerusalem,
the Second Coming of Christ, and the end of the world. It is well to keep in view
throughout the chapter that the prophecies involve multiple future events and
that the distinction of what is meant in every instance is hard to determine.
That such multiple prophecies are indeed commingled here is clear from
Matthew 24:3, where three separate questions by the apostles are given as the
subject of the discourse. "In this passage the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the
age so blend that the features of each cannot be precisely determined."[1]
For an outline of the chapter, the following has been adopted from Spence.Luke
2p. 184.">[2]
1. The episode regarding the widow's mites (Luke 21:1-4)
2. Jesus' prophecy of the temple's destruction, and by inference, the destruction
of Jerusalem (Luke 21:5-6)
3. The disciples' request to know the sign and when (Luke 21:7)
4. Apparent signs not to be mistaken for real (Luke 21:8-18)
5. The true sign, with destruction to follow at once (Luke 21:20-24)
6. Signs of the Second Coming and the End (Luke 21:25-27)
7. Practical applications and warnings (Luke 21:28-36)
8. Summary of Jesus' final actions before the Cross (Luke 21:37-38)SIZE>
This chapter regarding Jesus' prophecies uttered from the slopes of Olivet is
paralleled in Matthew 24 and Mark 13. Matthew's account is the fullest; but it is
easier to make a separation of the prophecies regarding Jerusalem and those
regarding the Second Coming, in the account here.
[1] Donald G. Miller, The Layman's Bible Commentary (Richmond, Virginia:
The John Knox Press, 1959), Vol. 18 (Luke), p. 145.
Luke 2p. 184.">[2] H. D. M. Spence, Pulpit Commentary (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1962), Vol. 16, Luke 2p. 184.
THE WIDOW'S TWO MITES
This wonderful story has captured the imagination of every generation, and this
woman's sacrificial gift has been the inspiration for countless gifts in all ages
since then.
And he looked up and saw the rich men that were casting their gifts into the
treasury. And he saw a certain widow casting in thither two mites. And he said,
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Of a truth I say unto you, This poor widow cast in more than they all: for all
these did of their superfluity cast in unto the gifts; but she of her want did cast in
all the living that she had. (Luke 21:1-4)
The omniscience of Jesus appears in his knowledge of the financial condition of
all the givers, this being another example of the emphasis on this attribute of
Jesus on the part of the synoptic writers.
The treasury ... Bliss stated that "The exact position of the treasury is not
certainly known";[3] but, following the studies of Lightfoot, most scholars have
located it in the Court of the Women, in which were placed "thirteen boxes in the
wall, for the reception of the alms of the people."[4] These are called "trumpets"
because of the trumpet shape of the metal devices on top of the boxes, flaring out
at the bottom and narrowing upward to a small opening at the top where the
monies were deposited.
Two mites ... The word for this coin is noted by Barclay thus:
A LEPTON was the smallest of all coins; the name means "the thin one"; it was
worth one-sixteenth of a penny; and therefore the offering of the widow was only
half a farthing. All she had in the world was two LEPTA.[5]
Plummer revealed that "According to Jewish law at the time, it was not
permissible to cast in less than TWO gifts."[6] Thus, this woman's gift was the
very smallest legal gift possible!
More than they all ... Jesus commended this gift, making it larger in his sight
than all of the other gifts combined, evidently basing such an evaluation upon the
following: (1) it manifested trust in God, being all that she had; (2) it was given
in harmony with God's laws, even to the point of the Pharisaical rule that it had
to be plural (two); (3) it was sacrificial, there being nothing at all left. If God still
measures gifts by the rule of what the giver has left, many a handsome gift must
appear deficient. Of course, we must believe that God does so evaluate all gifts to
his kingdom.
Spence observed that, "As far as we know, Jesus' comment upon the widow's
alms was his last word of public teaching."[7]
[3] George R. Bliss, An American Commentary on the New Testament (Valley
Forge, Pennsylvania: The Judson Press, n.d.), Vol. II, Luke, p. 299.
[4] H. D. M. Spence, op. cit., p. 182.
[5] William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke (Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1953), p. 265.
[6] Alfred Plummer, The Gospel according to Luke (New York: T. and T. Clark,
1929), en loco.
[7] H. D. M. Spence, op. cit., p. 183.
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PETT, “As we see from the chiasmus of the passage Luke connects the behaviour
of the Scribes towards widows’ possessions with the behaviour of a godly widow
towards God. Here we see one whose livelihood is swallowed up, but by her own
choice because of her trust in God to provide for her. And she is also here
compared with the wealthy generally. We are here reminded of Jesus’ words,
‘Blessed are you poor, for yours is the Kingly Rule of God’ (Luke 6:20).
In this case, which also connects up with the next passage, Jesus is possibly
sitting with His disciples in the Temple courtyard not far from a group of
trumpet shaped collection boxes placed in the wall of the court of the women for
the purpose of receiving nominated contributions to various needs. Each box was
for a different purpose which was clearly indicated on it. From there the gifts
would make their way to the Temple strong room. Or it may be that they were
seated near where the vow offerings were made, when the amount being offered
would be openly stated to the officiating priest.
He noted how the rich men came along and ostentatiously ‘cast’ their gifts into
the Treasury. This ostentation linked them with the follies of the Scribes. Or it
may be that they handed them over ostentatiously, making sure that all knew
what they were giving. And no doubt many were watching in admiration,
including possibly the disciples, who may even have commented on particularly
generous gifts.
BURKITT, “At the door of the temple, through which all the people passed in
and out, who came up three times a year at the solemn feasts, to worship
Almighty God in his own house, there was a chest set, (like the poor man's box in
some of our churches,) into which all persons cast their free-will offerings and
oblations, which were employed either for the use of the poor, or for the service
of the temple; and what was thus given, our Saviour calls an offering to God,
verse 4. These of their abundance have cast in unto the offerings of God.
Thence learn, that what we rightly give to the relief of the poor, or for the service
and towards the support of God's public worship, is consecrated to God, and as
such is accepted of him, and ought to be esteemed by us.
Observe, 2. With what pleasure and satisfaction our Saviour sets himself to view
those offerings, He beheld the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury.
Thence note, that our Saviour sets himself to view those offerings, He beheld the
rich men casting their gifts into the treasury.
Thence note, that our Saviour sees with pleasure, and beholds with delight,
whatever we have hearts to give unto him; whether for the relief of his members,
or for the support of his service. Oh blessed Saviour, while now thou sits at thy
Father's right hand in glory, thou sees every hand that is stretched forth to the
relief of thy poor members here on earth.
BI 1-4, "This poor Widow hath cast in more than they all
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The widow’s mites
Our Lord wished to see “how the multitude cast money into the collection-chest”—
not only how much—anybody could have discovered that—but in what manner and
spirit it was being done: reverently or irreverently—as unto God or as unto man—so
as to display or so as to conceal the offering—with a conscientious aim to give all that
was due, or a self-convicted sense that a part thereof was being withheld.
The searching eye of the Master struck through the outward demeanour of each
passing worshipper, right down to the motive that swayed the hand. He was reading
the heart of each giver. He was marking whether the gift was the mere fruit of a
devotionless habit—a sheer affectation of religious liberality—or, as it ought to be, a
humble and sincere token of gratitude and consecration to God. These were the
inquiries that were engaging the mind of our Lord on this memorable occasion. We
are not informed how long He had sat or what discoveries He had made before the
arrival of the “poor widow,” but He noticed that she gave but two “mites”; and
knowing that this was all she had, He discerned the unselfishness and love that
prompted an offering which would perhaps be her last oblation on the altar of the
Lord. This act of unfeigned devotion touched Him at once, insomuch that He
immediately called His disciples, and drew their attention to so striking and
instructive a case. It was her gift, rather than any other, that attracted the greatest
interest in the courts of heaven. It was her offering, rather than any other, that was
alone worthy of a permanent record in the Gospel History and the “books of eternal
remembrance.” And why? Not only because she gave “all her living,” but because she
gave it unto the Lord “with all her heart.” Not at all in a spirit of petulance or
desperation, as might have been the case; not at all because she saw want staring her
in the face, and thought it no longer worth her while to retain the paltry coins she
possessed. On the contrary, it was the fineness of the woman’s spirit, the richness of
her gratitude and love, the wealth of her self-forgetfulness and trust under the
severity of her trials, that gave her little gift the exceeding rareness of its value. She
was neither despairing nor repining, but “walking by faith” and in contentment,
reflecting that, not withstanding her indigence, there was none to whom she was so
great a debtor as unto the Lord her God, who in His providence had given her all she
had, or ever had had, or ever would have, temporal and spiritual. And out of the
depths of her adoration and thankfulness she says unto herself, “I will go,” in my
poverty and sincerity, “and pay my vows unto the Lord in the presence of all His
people,” cast my slender and only offering into the sacred treasury, and await the
goodness of His hand in “the land of the living.” The other worshippers were giving
variously, but all “of their abundance”; or, as the Revised Version has it, “of their
superfluity.” They never missed what they gave. They were sacrificing nothing to
enable them to give. They could have given more, some of them far more, and never
have felt the slightest pressure in consequence. But the “poor widow” had not an iota
more to offer. She gave her “uttermost farthing,” and she gave it gladly. (J.
W.Pringle, M. A.)
The duty of almsgiving
1. It is necessary and scriptural that there be public voluntary contributions for
pious and charitable purposes.
2. Both the rich and the poor should contribute to pious and charitable purposes,
and that according to their respective ability.
3. It concerns us all to see that our contributions be such, in respect of the
principles and motives from which they flow, as will meet with the Divine
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approbation.
4. Be exhorted to cast liberally into the offerings of God, by the encouraging
considerations which are placed before you in His Word.
(1) Remember that the eye of the Lord Jesus Christ is upon you.
(2) Remember, again, the considerations connected with the amazing
kindness of your God and Saviour to you.
(3) Be exhorted, once more, to give liberally, by the consideration of the
promise of an abundant recompense, both in this world and in the world to
come. (James Foote, M. A.)
The anonymous widow
It is related of Father Taylor, the sailor missionary of Boston, that on one occasion,
when a minister was urging that the names of the subscribers to an institution (it was
tile missionary cause) should be published, in order to increase the funds, and
quoted the account of the poor widow and her two mites, to justify this trumpet-
sounding, he settled the question by rising from his seat, and asking in his clear,
shrill voice, “Will the speaker please give us the name of that poor widow?”
(Christian Age.)
The widow’s mite
When it is said that this mite was all this woman’s living, it must, of course, mean all
her living for that day. She threw herself upon the providence of God to supply her
with her evening meal or night’s lodging. From what she gave, which the Lord
brought to light and commended, the expression “I give my mite” has passed into a
proverb, which in the mouths of many who use it is ridiculous, if not profane. What
ought to be the mite of one in a good business which yields him several hundreds a
year clear profit? What ought to be the mite of a professional man in good practice,
after all reasonable family claims are provided for? A man with an income of at least
two or three hundred a year once said to me, when I called upon him for assistance in
keeping up a national school, “I will think about it, sir, and I will give you my mite.”
He did think, and his mite was two shillings. Contrast this with the following. Two
aged paupers, having only the usual parish pay, became communicants. They
determined that they would not neglect the offertory; but how was this to be done, as
they were on starvation allowance? Well, during the week before the celebration, they
did without light, sat up for two or three hours in the dark, and then went to bed, and
gave the few pence which they saved in oil or rushlights to be laid on the altar of God.
(M. F. Sadler.)
Giving his all
A gentleman was walking late one night along a street in London, in which stands the
hospital where some of our little friends support a bed (“The May Fair Cot,” in
Ormond Street Hospital) for a sick child. There were three acrobats passing along
there, plodding wearily home to their miserable lodgings after their day’s work; two
of them were men, and they were carrying the ladders and poles with which they gave
their performance in the streets whenever they could collect a crowd to look on. The
third was a little boy in a clown’s dress. He trotted wearily behind, very tired, and
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looking pale and sick. Just as they were passing the hospital the little lad’s sad face
brightened for a moment. He ran up the steps and dropped into the box attached to
the door a little bit of paper. It was found next morning there. It contained a
sixpence, and on the paper was written, “For a sick child.” The one who saw it
afterwards ascertained, as he tells us, that the poor little waif, almost destitute, had
been sick, and in his weary pilgrimage was a year before brought to the hospital,
which had been a “ House Beautiful “ to him, and he was there cured of his bodily
disease. Hands of kindness had ministered to him, words of kindness had been
spoken to him, and he had left it cured in body and whole in heart. Some one on that
day in a crowd had slipped a sixpence into his hand, and that same night as he passed
by, his grateful little heart gave up for other child-sufferers “all the living that he
had.” It was all done so quietly, so noiselessly; but oh I believe me, the sound of that
little coin falling into God’s treasury that night rose above the roar and din of this
mighty city, and was heard with joy in the very presence of God Himself
The giving out of abundance and out of penury
“Mamma, I thought a mite was a very little thing. What did the Lord mean when He
said the widow’s mite was more than all the money the rich men gave?” It was
Sunday afternoon, and the question was asked by a little child of eight, who had
large, dark, inquiring eyes, that were always trying to look into things. Mamma had
just been reading to her the story from the Bible, and now she wanted it explained.
Mamma thought for a few minutes, and then said, “Well, Lulu, I will tell you a little
story, and then I think you will understand why the widow’s mite was more valuable
than ordinary mites. There was once a little girl, whose name was Kitty, and this little
girl had ever so many dolls, almost more than she could count. Some were made of
china, and others were made of wax, with real hair and beautiful eyes that would
open and shut; but Kitty was tired of them all, except the newest one, which her
auntie had given her at Christmas. One day a poor little girl came to the door
begging, and Kitty’s mother told her to go and get one of her old dolls and give it
away. She did so, and her old doll was like what the rich men put into the treasury.
She could give it away just as well as not, and it didn’t cost her anything. But the poor
little beggar girl was delighted with her doll. She had never had but one before, and
that was a rag doll; but this one had such lovely curly hair, and she had never seen
any lady with such an elegant pink silk dress on. She was almost afraid to hold it
against her dirty shawl, for fear of soiling it; so she hurried home as fast as she could,
to hide it away with her few small treasures. Just as she was going upstairs to their
poor rooms, she saw through the crack of the door in the basement her little friend
Sally, who had been sick in bed all summer, and who was all alone all day, while her
mother went out washing, to try and earn money enough to keep them from starving.
As our little girl looked through the crack she thought to herself, ‘I must show Sally
my new dolly.’ So she rushed into the room and on to the bed, crying, ‘O Sally! see!’
Sally tried to reach out her arms to take it, but she was too sick; so her little friend
held up the dolly, and as she did so, she thought, ‘How sick Sally looks to-day! and
she hasn’t any dolly.’ Then, with one generous impulse, she said, ‘Here, Sally, you
may have her.’ Now, Lulu, do you see? The little girl’s dolly was like the widow’s
mite—she gave her all.”
The largest giver
The late Bishop Selwyn was a man of ready wit as well as of devout Christian feeling.
In his New Zealand diocese it was proposed to allot the seats of a new church, when
the Bishop asked on what principle the allotment was to be made, to which it was
replied that the largest donors should have the best seats, and so on in proportion.
To this arrangement, to the surprise of every one, the Bishop assented, and presently
the question arose who had given the most. This, it was answered, should be decided
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by the subscription list. “And now,” said the Bishop, “who has given the most? The
poor widow in the temple, in casting into the treasury her two mites, had cast in
more than they all; for they of their abundance had cast into the treasury, but she had
cast in all the living that she had.” (W. Baxendale.)
A Welsh boy’s offering
It is related of a little Welsh boy who attended a missionary meeting that when he
had given in his collecting card and what he had obtained from his friends, he was
greatly distressed because he had not a halfpenny of his own to put in the plate at the
meeting. His heart was so thrilled with interest in the work that he ran home and told
his mother that he wanted to be a missionary, and asked her to give him something
for the collection, but she was too poor to give him any money. He was disappointed
and cried; but a thought struck him. He collected all his marbles, went out, and sold
them for a penny, and then went to the meeting again and put it on the plate, feeling
glad that he was able to do something to promote the cause of missions.
What one halfpenny can do
A son of one of the chiefs of Burdwan was converted by a single tract. He could not
read, but he went to Rangoon, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles; a
missionary’s wife taught him to read, and in forty-eight hours he could read the tract
through. He then took a basket full of tracts; with much difficulty preached the
gospel at his own home, and was the means of converting hundreds to God. He was a
man of influence; the people flocked to hear him; and in one year one thousand five
hundred natives were baptized in Arracan as members of the Church. And all this
through one little tract I That tract cost one halfpenny! Oh! whose halfpenny was it?
God only knows. Perhaps it was the mite of some little girl; perhaps the well-earned
offering of some little boy. But what a blessing it was! (Bowes.)
The gifts of the poor
Sarah Hosmer, while a factory girl, gave fifty guineas to support native pastors. When
more than sixty years old she longed so to furnish Nestoria with one more preacher
that, living in an attic, she took in sewing until she had accomplished her cherished
purpose. Dr. Gordon has well said, “In the hands of this consecrated woman, money
transformed the factory girl and the seamstress into a missionary of the Cross and
then multiplied her sixfold.” But might we not give a thousand times as much money
as Sarah Hosmer gave, and yet not earn her reward?
The true worth of money
After all, objects take their colour from the eyes that look at them. And let us be
assured that there is an infinite difference in the sight of an eye which is the window
of a sordid soul and an eye from which looks a soul that has been ennobled by the
royal touch of Christ. There are some eyes that read upon a piece of gold nothing but
the figures that tell its denomination. There are others, thank God, that see upon it
truths that thrill and gladden and uplift. If the lust of gold has blinded your eyes to all
else but its conventional value, go to the feet of Christ, and to His question, “What
wilt thou that I should do unto thee?” answer, “Lord, that mine eyes might be
opened.” And when you have learned to look through money into that infinite reach
that lies beyond it, you will have learned the lesson of the gospel. You may then be a
“rich Christian,” making earth brighter and better, and building for yourself in
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heaven “everlasting habitations.”
Liberal giving
In a sequestered glen in Burmah lived a woman, who was known as Naughapo
(Daughter of Goodness). Sire was the Dorcas of the glen—clothing the naked, feeding
the hungry, soothing the afflicted, and often making her little dwelling the home of
the poor, that they might enjoy the privilege of the neighbouring school. Mrs. Mason,
the missionary, visiting her, was struck with the beauty of her peaceful home—
evidently a spot which the Lord had blessed … The day before she left, apedlar had
called with his tempting fabrics for sale; but though this poor woman was in poor
garments, she had but one rupee for purchases, while on the following morning she
and her family put thirteen rupees into Mrs. Mason’s hand, to be deposited in the
mission treasury. (Mrs. Wylie’s “Life of Mrs. Mason.”)
Noble giving
General Gordon had a great number of medals, for which he cared nothing. There
was a gold one, however, given to him by the Empress of China, with a special
inscription engraved upon it, for which he had a great liking. But it suddenly
disappeared, no one knew when or how. Years afterwards it was found out by a
curious accident that he had erased the inscription, sold the medal for ten pounds,
and sent the sum anonymously to Canon Millar, for the relief of the sufferers from
the cotton famine at Manchester. (E. Hake.)
2 He also saw a poor widow put in two very
small copper coins.
CLARKE, "A certain poor widow - A widow miserably poor; this is the proper
import of πενιχραν, and her being miserably poor heightened the merit of the action.
Two mites - Which Mark says, Mar_12:42, make a farthing or quadrans, the
fourth part of an As, or penny, as we term it. In Plutarch’s time we find the smallest
piece of brass coin in use among the Romans was the quadrans, but it appears that a
smaller piece of money was in circulation among the Jews in our Lord’s time, called
here, and in Mark, Mar_12:42, a lepton, i.e. small, diminished, from λειπω, I fail. In
ancient times our penny used to be marked with a deep indented cross, dividing the
piece into four equal parts, which, when broken in two, made the half-penny, and,
when broken into four, made the fourthing, what we have corrupted into farthing.
Probably the Roman quadrans was divided in this way for the convenience of the
poor. Our term mite seems to have been taken from the animal called by that name;
for as that appeared to our ancestors to be the smallest of all animals, so this being
the smallest of all coins was called by its name. Junius says that mite was a small
base coin among the Dutch. Our word mite seems to be a contraction of the Latin
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minutum, a small thing, whence the French miete, a crumb, a very small morsel. See
the note on Mar_12:41.
GILL, "And he saw also a certain poor widow,.... Whom he took particular
notice of above all the rest: the poor, and the widow, are regarded by him, and are his
care; nor are their mean services, done in faith, and from a principle of love, despised
by him, but preferred to the greater services of others, where faith and love are
wanting:
casting in thither two mites; the value of a farthing. The Persic version renders
it, "two bottoms of yarn"; See Gill on Mar_12:42,
HENRY, "That Christ observes and accepts the charity of the poor in a particular
manner. Those that have nothing to give may yet do a great deal in charity by
ministering to the poor, and helping them, and begging for them, that cannot help
themselves, or beg for themselves. But here was one that was herself poor and yet
gave what little she had to the treasury. It was but two mites, which make a farthing;
but Christ magnified it as a piece of charity exceeding all the rest: She has cast in
more than they all. Christ does not blame her for indiscretion, in giving what she
wanted herself, nor for vanity in giving among the rich to the treasury; but
commended her liberality, and her willingness to part with what little she had for the
glory of God, which proceeded from a belief of and dependence upon God's
providence to take care of her. Jehovah-jireh - the Lord will provide. 4. That,
whatever may be called the offerings of God, we ought to have a respect for, and to
our power, yea, and beyond our power, to contribute cheerfully to. These have cast in
unto the offerings of God. What is given to the support of the ministry and the
gospel, to the spreading and propagating of religion, the education of youth, the
release of prisoners, the relief of widows and strangers, and the maintenance of poor
families, is given to the offerings of God, and it shall be so accepted and
recompensed.
JAMISON, "two mites — “which make a farthing” (Mar_12:42), the smallest
Jewish coin. “She might have kept one” [Bengel].
PETT, "But then Jesus noted a woman who cast in ‘a very few lepta’, the very
smallest Jewish coin. The number ‘two’ was often used to indicate ‘a very few’
(compare 1 Kings 17:12). Numbers in those days tended not to be used strictly
mathematically but as adjectives which were intended to convey an impression.
Thus Jesus may not have known the exact amount. Although if it was a vow
offering it would be declared. In this latter case we can imagine what the priest
thought when he announced ‘two lepta’. Even if he was a good man he would not
have been moved by the thought of it. But whether it was a general gift or a vow
offering, in either case Jesus knew that it was all that she had. And He was
moved in His heart by how much she had given.
BURKITT, “Verse 2, But a certain poor widow cast in two mites. Several
circumstances relating both to the person and the action are here observable: as
1. The person that offered was a widow: the married woman is under the careful
provision of her husband; if she spends, he earns; but the widow has no hands
but her own to work for her.
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Observe, 2. She was a poor widow; poverty added to the sorrow of her
widowhood, she had no rich jointure to live upon; it is some alleviation of the
sorrow that attends widowhood, when the hand is left full, though the bed be left
empty: this widow was needy and desolate, but yet gives; some in her
circumstances would have looked upon themselves as having a right to receive
what was given by others, rather than give anything themselves.
3 “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow
has put in more than all the others.
GILL, "And he said,.... To his disciples, as the Ethiopic version adds; these he
called to him, upon this occasion, as appears from Mar_12:43
of a truth I say unto you, that this poor woman hath cast in more than
they all: than all the rich men; not in quantity, but in proportion to her ability; See
Gill on Mar_12:43.
HENRY, "She has cast in more than they all. Christ does not blame her for
indiscretion, in giving what she wanted herself, nor for vanity in giving among the
rich to the treasury; but commended her liberality, and her willingness to part with
what little she had for the glory of God, which proceeded from a belief of and
dependence upon God's providence to take care of her. Jehovah-jireh - the Lord will
provide.
JAMISON, "And he said — “to His disciples,” whom He “called to Him” (Mar_
12:43), to teach from it a great future lesson.
more than ... all — in proportion to her means, which is God’s standard (2Co_
8:12).
PETT, "And this time it was Jesus turn to comment on the munificence of the
gift, and He does it with characteristic firmness. ‘Truly I say to you’. And what
He wanted to point out was that while others had given out of their plenty, and
would hardly notice the loss of what they had given, this ‘poor widow’ (the
unusual adjective emphasises it) has actually given her whole living. She has cast
herself on God. Thus she had given more than all the others put together, for she
had given all that she had. Here was one who had done what the rich ruler had
failed to do, she had given all that she had to God. Her attitude of ‘giving’ was in
direct contrast with the ‘devouring’ of the Scribes. And from it we gain that
important lesson, that God does not judge our giving by the amount that we give,
but by the amount that we keep for ourselves. We also see in it an example of
how and why it is the ‘poor’ to whom the Good News will come (Luke 4:18).
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BURKITT, “Observe, 3. Her bounty and munificence in giving; her two mites
are proclaimed by Christ to be more than all the rich men's talents: more in
respect to the mind and affection of the giver: more with respect to the
proportion of the gift; a mite to her being more than pounds to others. Pounds
were little to them; two mites were all to her, she leaves herself nothing; so that
the poor woman gave not only more than any of them all, but more than they all.
Christ's eye looked at once into the bottom of her purse, and into the bottom of
her heart, and judged of the offering, rather by the mind of the giver than by the
value of the gift.
From this instance we learn,
1. That the poorer, yea the poorest sort of people, are not exempted from good
works; but even they must and ought to exercise charity according to their
ability. This poor widow, that had not a pound, no, not a penny, presents God
with a farthing.
2. That in all works of pious charity which we perform, God looks at the heart,
the will, and the affection of the giver, more than at the largeness and liberality
of the gift. It is not said, the Lord loves a liberal giver, but a cheerful giver; He
accepteth the gift according to what a man hath, and not according to what he
hath not.
Oh, our God! The poorest of us thy servants have our two mites also, a soul and
a body; persuade and enable us to offer them both unto thee: though they are
thine already, yet thou wilt graciously accept them: and oh how happy shall we
be in thy acceptation!
4 All these people gave their gifts out of their
wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she
had to live on.”
GILL, "For all these have of their abundance,.... Which they had remaining;
the same Hebrew word ‫יתר‬ signifying to remain, and to abound: they had large
possessions, and gave in much, and yet had a great deal left; out of which they
cast in unto the offerings of God; or "gifts of God": not as gifts unto him; or
among the gifts of God; but into the treasury where the gifts, and freewill offerings
were put; the same with the "Corban", in Mat_27:6 and so the Syriac version here
renders it, "the house of the offering of God": and it is expressed in the plural;
because there were several chests, in which these gifts were put, for various uses; See
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Gill on Mar_12:41.
but she of her penury hath cast in all the living she had; See Gill on Mar_
12:44.
HENRY, " That, whatever may be called the offerings of God, we ought to have a
respect for, and to our power, yea, and beyond our power, to contribute cheerfully to.
These have cast in unto the offerings of God. What is given to the support of the
ministry and the gospel, to the spreading and propagating of religion, the education
of youth, the release of prisoners, the relief of widows and strangers, and the
maintenance of poor families, is given to the offerings of God, and it shall be so
accepted and recompensed.
JAMISON, "of their abundance — their superfluity; what they had to spare,”
or beyond what they needed.
of her penury — or “want” (Mar_12:44) - her deficiency, of what was less than
her own wants required, “all the living she had.” Mark (Mar_12:44) still more
emphatically, “all that she had - her whole subsistence.” Note: (1) As temple offerings
are needed still for the service of Christ at home and abroad, so “looking down”
now, as then “up,” Me “sees” who “cast in,” and how much. (2) Christ’s standard of
commendable offering is not our superfluity, but our deficiency - not what will never
be missed, but what costs us some real sacrifice, and just in proportion to the relative
amount of that sacrifice. (See 2Co_8:1-3.)
COKE, "Luke 21:11. Fearful sights, &c.— Josephus, in his relation of the signs
and prodigies which preceded the taking of Jerusalem, mentions that a star hung
over the city like a sword, and [an appearance like] a comet continued for a
whole year; that the people being assembled to celebrate the feast of unleavened
bread, at the ninth hour of the night, there shone so great a light about the altar
and the temple, that it seemed to be bright day, and this continued for half an
hour; that the eastern gate of the temple, which was of solid brass, and was
scarcely to be shut by twenty men, was seen, at the sixth hour of the night, to
open of its own accord, though fastened by strong bars and bolts, and could
hardly be shut again; that, before the setting of the sun, there were seen, all over
the country, chariots and armies fighting in the clouds; and that at the feast of
Pentecost, the priests perceived, first a motion and noise, and then heard the
voice as of a multitude, saying, "Let us depart hence." It may add some weight to
this relation of Josephus, that Tacitus, the Roman, confirms every one of these
particulars in his History. If Christ had not expressly foretold this, many who
give little heed to portents, and who know that historians have been too
credulous in that point, would have suspected that Josephus exaggerated, and
that Tacitus was misinformed. But as the testimonies of Josephus and Tacitus
serve in some measure to confirm the predictions of Christ, so the predictions of
Christ confirm the wonders recorded by those historians. Yet, even allowing all
that incredulity can urge,—that in the great calamities of war, and famine, and
pestilence, the people always grow superstitious,—that they see nothing but
prodigies and portents;—that some of these seem to be formed in imitation of the
Greek and Roman historians; that armies fighting in the clouds are nothing
more than meteors,—such as the aurora borealis, or northern lights:—in short,
allowing that some of these prodigies were reigned, andothers were exaggerated,
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yet the prediction of them is not the lessdivine on that account. Whether they
were supernatural, or fictions only of disordered imaginations; yet they were
believed as realities, had all the effects of realities, and were equally worthy to be
made the objects of prophesy. Fearful sights and great signs from heaven they
certainly were, as much as if they had been created on purpose to astonish the
earth. We should observe concerning this prophesy, which is expressed in terms
so very plain and circumstantial,—that St. Matthew and St. Mark were
incontestably dead before the event, as St. Luke also probably might be; and as
for St. John, the only evangelist who survived it, it is remarkable that he
mentions nothing of it, lest any should say that the prophesy was forged after the
event happened. See, for a full explanation of the particulars of this chapter, the
notes on Matthew 24.
1. Brian Bell wrote, “The Disciples saw rich people giving; Jesus saw a poor
widow sacrificing! Story - Remember the story of the Pig and a chicken that
were looking for work? They came upon a church sign which was advertising a
breakfast be held
in a few days. At the bottom of the sign the menu was given, it read “Help needed
to serve breakfast with Ham and eggs. Apply for job here”. The chicken turned
to the pig and said, "Hey let’s help out with this breakfast. I’m willing to give my
eggs!” "Yes,” said the pig, “but yours is only a contribution, mine is a
SACRIFICE."
“The religious leaders were interested in all they could get out of life. She was
interested in what she could give in life.”
NISBET, “CHRIST’S STANDARD OF GIVING
‘For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she
of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.’
Luke 21:4
Observe—
I. How keenly our Lord observes the things that are done upon earth.—‘All
things are naked and opened to the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do
(Hebrews 4:13). He measures littleness and greatness by a very different measure
from the measure of man. Events in our own daily life, to which we attach no
importance, are often very grave and serious matters in Christ’s sight.
II. Christ’s standard of liberality.—He would have us know that some persons
appear to give much to religious purposes who in God’s sight give very little, and
that some appear to give very little who in God’s sight give very much.
III. Our use of the money God has given us will have to be accounted for at the
last day.—The ‘Judge of all will be He Who noticed the widow’s mite.’ Our
incomes and expenditures will be brought to light before an assembled world.
Illustration
‘Let us beware of lightly using the expression, “giving our mite,” in reference to
15

giving money to religious or charitable causes. The phrase is often employed
without thought or consideration. If people would “give their mite” really and
literally as the widow gave hers, many would have to give far more money than
they ever give now. Her “mite” meant something that she gave with immense
self-denial, and at great sacrifice. Most men’s “mite” nowadays means something
that is not felt, not missed, and makes no difference to their comfort. If all people
gave their “mite” as the widow gave hers, the world and the Church would soon
be in a very different state.’
The Destruction of the Temple and Signs of the
End Times
5 Some of his disciples were remarking about
how the temple was adorned with beautiful
stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But
Jesus said,
BARNES, "Goodly stones - Beautiful stones. Either referring to the large,
square, and well-finished stones of which the eastern wall was built, or to the
precious stones which might have been used in decorating the temple itself. See the
notes at Mar_13:1.
Gifts - This word properly denotes anything devoted or dedicated to God.
Anciently warriors dedicated to their gods the spoils of war - the shields, and
helmets, and armor, and garments of those slain in battle. These were suspended in
the temples. It would seem that something of this kind had occurred in the temple of
Jerusalem, and that the people, to express their gratitude to God, had suspended on
the pillars and perches of the temple gifts and offerings. Josephus mentions
particularly a golden “vine” with which Herod the Great had adorned the columns of
the temple (“Antiq.” xiii. 8). See also 2 Macc. 5:16; 9:16.
CLARKE, "Goodly stones - Or, costly stones. It has been thought by some that
this relates not so much to the stones of which the temple was built, as to the
precious stones with which it was decorated. For an account of the stones of the
temple, see on Mar_13:1 (note).
And gifts - Or, consecrated things, αναθηµασι. Αναθηµα properly signifies a thing
consecrated to sacred uses: Αναθεµα signifies a thing devoted to a curse, or to
16

destruction. They both come from the same root, ανατιθηµι, I lay up, separate; and
though two meanings cannot be more opposite than those assigned to these words,
yet in the words themselves a short vowel (ε) in the place of a long one (η) makes all
the difference between blessing and cursing.
GILL, "And as some spake of the temple,.... These were the disciples; Mark
says, one of them; but it seems there were more than one; one might begin the
discourse, and others join him:
how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts; See Gill on Mat_24:1.
he said; what follows. This was as he went out of the temple.
HENRY, "See here, I. With what admiration some spoke of the external pomp
and magnificence of the temple, and they were some of Christ's own disciples too;
and they took notice of it to him how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts,
Luk_21:5. The outside was built up with goodly stones, and within it was beautified
and enriched with the presents that were offered up for that purpose, and were hung
up in it. They thought their Master should be as much affected with those things as
they were, and should as much regret the destruction of them as they did. When we
speak of the temple, it should be of the presence of God in it, and of the ordinances of
God administered in it, and the communion which his people there have with him. It
is a poor thing, when we speak of the church, to let our discourse dwell upon its
pomps and revenues, and the dignities and powers of its officers and rulers; for the
king's daughter is all glorious within.
JAMISON, "Luk_21:5-38. Christ’s prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem and
warnings to prepare for His second coming, suggested by it - His days and nights
during his last week.
(See on Mar_13:1-37.)
BARCLAY, "TIDINGS OF TROUBLE (Luke 21:5-24)
21:5-24 When some were speaking about the Temple, how it was adorned with
lovely stones and offerings, Jesus said, "As for these things at which you are
looking--days will come in which not one stone here will be left upon another,
which will not be pulled down." They asked him, "Teacher, when, then, will
these things be? And what will be the sign when these things are going to
happen?" He said, "Take care that you are not led astray. Many will come in my
name, saying, 'I am he!' and, 'The time is at hand!' Do not go after them. When
you hear of wars and upheavals, do not be alarmed; for these things must
happen first; but the end will not come at once."
Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom. There will be great earthquakes; in some places there will be famines
and pestilences; there will be terrifying things, and great signs from heaven.
Before all these things, they will lay hands upon you, and they will hand you over
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to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and
governors for the sake of my name. It will all be an opportunity for you to bear
witness to me. So, then, make up your minds not to prepare your defence
beforehand, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom against which all your
opponents will be unable to stand or argue. You will be handed over even by
parents, and brothers, and kinsfolk and friends; some of you will be put to
death; and you will be hated by all for the sake of my name. But not one hair of
your head will perish. By your endurance you will win your souls.
"When you shall see Jerusalem encircled by armies, then know that the time of
the desolation is at hand. At that time let those in Jerusalem flee to the
mountains; let those who are in the midst of her go out of her; and let not those
in the country districts enter into her, because these are days of vengeance, to
fulfil all that stands written. Woe to those who, in those days, are carrying a
child in the womb, or who have a babe at the breast. For great distress will be
upon the earth and wrath upon all the people. They shall fall by the edge of the
sword, and they will be taken away captive to all nations. Jerusalem will be
trodden underfoot by the gentiles, until the times of gentiles are completed."
The Background Of The Chapter
From Luke 21:5 onwards this becomes a very difficult chapter. Its difficulty rests
in the fact that beneath it lie four different conceptions.
(i) There is the conception of the day of the Lord. The Jews regarded time as
being in two ages. There was the present age, which was altogether bad and evil,
incapable of being cured, and fit only for destruction. There was the age to come,
which was the golden age of God and of Jewish supremacy. But in between the
two there would be the day of the Lord, which would be a terrible time of cosmic
upheaval and destruction, the desperate birth-pangs of the new age.
It would be a day of terror. "Behold the day of the Lord comes, cruel with wrath
and fierce anger, to make the earth a desolation and to destroy its sinners from
it." (Isaiah 13:9; compare Joel 2:1-2; Amos 5:18-20; Zephaniah 1:14-18.) It
would come suddenly. "The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night."
(1 Thessalonians 5:2; compare 2 Peter 3:10.) It would be a day when the world
would be shattered. "The stars of the heavens and their constellations will not
give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shed its
light.... Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken
out of its place, at the wrath of the Lord of hosts in the day of his fierce anger."
(Isaiah 13:10-13; compare Joel 2:30-31; 2 Peter 3:10.)
The day of the Lord was one of the basic conceptions of religious thought in the
time of Jesus; everyone knew these terrible pictures. In this passage Luke 21:9;
Luke 21:11, Luke 21:25-26 take their imagery from that.
(ii) There is the prophesied fall of Jerusalem. Jerusalem fell to the Roman armies
in A.D. 70 after a desperate siege in which the inhabitants were actually reduced
to cannibalism and in which the city had to be taken literally stone by stone.
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Josephus says that an incredible number of 1,100,000 people perished in the
siege and 97,000 were carried away into captivity. The Jewish nation was
obliterated; and the Temple was fired and became a desolation. In this passage
Luke 21:5-6, Luke 21:20-24 clearly refer to that event still to come.
(iii) There is the second coming of Christ. Jesus was sure that he was to come
again and the early church waited for that coming. It will often help us to
understand the New Testament passages about the second coming if we
remember that much of the older imagery which had to do with the day of the
Lord was taken and attached to it. In this passage Luke 21:27-28 clearly refer to
it. Before the second coming it was expected that many false claimants to be the
Christ would arise and great upheavals take place. In this passage Luke 21:7-9
refer to that.
(iv) There is the idea of persecution to come. Jesus clearly foresaw and foretold
the terrible things his people would have to suffer for his sake in the days to
come. In this passage Luke 21:12-19 refer to that.
This passage will become much more intelligible and valuable if we remember
that beneath it there is not one consistent idea, but these four allied conceptions.
The Passage
It was a comment on the splendour of the Temple that moved Jesus to prophesy.
In the Temple the pillars of the porches and of the cloisters were columns of
white marble, forty feet high, each made of one single block of stone. Of the
ornaments, the most famous was the great vine made of solid gold, each of whose
clusters was as tall as a man. The finest description of the Temple as it stood in
the time of Jesus is in Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, book 5, section 5. At one
point he writes, "The outward face of the Temple in its front wanted nothing
that was likely to surprise either men's minds or their eyes, for it was covered all
over with plates of gold of great weight, and, at the first rising of the sun,
reflected back a very fiery splendour, and made those who forced themselves to
look upon it to turn their eyes away, just as they would have done at the sun's
own rays. But the Temple appeared to strangers, when they were at a distance,
like a mountain covered with snow, for, as to those parts of it that were not gilt,
they were exceeding white." To the Jews it was unthinkable that the glory of the
Temple should be shattered to dust.
From this passage we learn certain basic things about Jesus and about the
Christian life.
(i) Jesus could read the signs of history. Others might be blind to the
approaching disaster but he saw the avalanche about to descend. It is only when
a man sees things through the eyes of God that he sees them clearly.
(ii) Jesus was completely honest. "This," he said to his disciples, "is what you
must expect if you choose to follow me." Once in the middle of a great struggle
for righteousness, an heroic leader wrote to a friend, "Heads are rolling in the
sand; come and add yours." Jesus believed in men enough to offer them, not an
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easy way, but a way for heroes.
(iii) Jesus promised that his disciples would never meet their tribulations alone.
It is the sheer evidence of history that the great Christians have written over and
over again, when their bodies were in torture and when they were awaiting
death, of sweet times with Christ. A prison can be like a palace, a scaffold like a
throne, the storms of life like summer weather, when Christ is with us.
(iv) Jesus spoke of a safety that overpasses the threats of earth. "Not one hair of
your head," he said, "will be harmed." In the days of the 1914-18 war Rupert
Brooke, out of his faith and his ideal, wrote these lines:
We have found safety with all things undying,
The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,
The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,
And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth.
We have built a house which is not for Time's throwing,
We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.
War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,
Secretly armed against all death's endeavour:
Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall;
And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.
The man who walks with Christ may lose his life but he can never lose his soul.
. Intervarsity Commentary, “The rebuilt temple of Herod created such an
impression. When the disciples praised its grandeur to Jesus (v. 5), the temple
was in the midst of an eighty-three-year building program. Started about 20
B.C., it continued until A.D. 63-64, just a few years before Jerusalem's fall in
A.D. 70. Assuming an A.D. 33 date for the crucifixion, the program was over fifty
years old at the time the disciples marveled at it. The temple clearly made a deep
impression on all who visited it. Josephus gives detailed descriptions of its beauty
(Jewish Wars 1.21.1 401; 5.5.1-6 184-227; Antiquities 15.11.1-7 380-425). The
Roman historian Tacitus also describes the temple as containing great riches
(History 5.8.1). Some of its stones were 12 to 60 feet in length, 7.5 feet in height
and 9 feet in width (Josephus Jewish Wars 5.5.1-2 189-90 gives these
measurements in cubits; a cubit is eighteen inches). The temple loomed over the
city like a "snow clad mountain" (Josephus Jewish Wars 5.5.6 223). Not only was
the building impressive, but it was decorated with gifts from other countries and
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had elegantly adorned doors and gates of fine craftsmanship (Josephus Jewish
Wars 5.5.3-5 206-18).
No wonder the disciples felt national pride as they surveyed the awesome temple,
exclaiming at its beautiful stones and . . . gifts dedicated to God. Surely something
so magnificent and God-honoring, something that had taken so long to build,
would last a very long time. God's presence finally had a secure home.
COFFMAN, "THE PROPHECY OF THE TEMPLE'S DESTRUCTION
There cannot be imagined a more shocking statement of Jesus, as this must have
been viewed by the apostles. Mark identified the ones speaking here as Peter,
James, John, and Andrew. To every Jew, the temple was the most sacred and
beautiful thing ever seen on earth. Josephus (Book V, Chapter 5) described the
snow-white stones of such great size, some of which were overlaid with pure gold,
and the magnificence of this structure which required the labor of thousands of
men from 20-19 B.C. to 64 A.D. to build. Although not completed until long after
Jesus' words, it was nevertheless sufficiently built, even then, to justify what is
said of it here.
In addition to the fundamental structure, there were adornments of the most
extravagant and expensive kind, given by people out of gratitude to God for
various deliverances, or by such people as Herod for political considerations.
Herod's gift was a golden vine with clusters larger than a man.
Spence thought there might have been some kind of connection between Jesus'
praise of the widow's gift and the apostles' calling attention to the precious
stones and adornments within the temple with an implication in their remarks
that "If only such gifts as you have just praised had been made, never had that
glorious pile been raised in the honor of the Eternal King!"[8]
Jesus' mention of the stones that would be "thrown down," however, focuses
attention, not on the adornments, but upon the foundations. All three synoptics
mention this prophecy that not a stone would be left intact in the temple; and
this must rank as one of the greatest prophecies ever uttered among the sons of
earth. There can be no quibbling about this prophecy. Jesus made it, much to the
astonishment of his disciples, and against all probabilities that such a thing was
even possible. Why should every stone be moved, especially in view of their size?
The occasion for this was the gold plating, which when the temple burned, ran
down into the crevices; and the soldiers of Titus made a thorough search for the
yellow metal. Also significantly, the temple was destroyed contrary to Titus'
orders.[9] After the fire, however, Titus ordered the destruction to be
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completed.[10] See my Commentary on Matthew, Matthew 24:1-2.
There cannot be any doubt of Titus' making every conceivable effort to spare the
glorious temple. Near the end of the siege, when he was trying to negotiate with
some of the Jewish leaders, he said, "I will endeavor to preserve you your holy
house, whether you will or not."[11] Jesus, however, had condemned the temple
to destruction, and not even the word of a man so powerful as Titus could stand
against the word of Jesus.
Although the destruction of Jerusalem itself is not mentioned in these verses, it is
clearly implied; and so the apostles understood it.
The temple was the last link between God and the hardened Israel. "How
gloriously God had revealed himself there to his faithful worshipers!"[12] Isaiah
was called to his prophetic work in the temple (Isaiah 6); and in the temple an
angel of the Most High had appeared to Zachariah with the announcement of the
birth of John (Luke 1:11ff).
[8] Ibid.
[9] James MacKnight, A Harmony of the Gospels (Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Baker Book House, 1950), p. 412.
[10] Flavius Josephus, Wars and Antiquities (New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston), p. 831.
[11] Ibid., p. 814.
[12] Norval Geldenhuys, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1951), p. 524.
PETT, “Luke is deliberately vague about where and to whom these words were
spoken. He does not want to move attention away from the Temple area, nor
specifically restrict the words to the disciples. He wants it to be seen that these
words were finally meant for all, and link them as closely as possible to the
Temple in which Jesus has and will spend His last days.
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Excursus on The Temple.
Luke’s treatment of the Temple and Jerusalem is fascinating. He closely links it
with Jesus’ birth, (although the birth itself takes place outside it), as He is seen as
it were to come from it, as we now discover, in order to replace it (1-2; John
2:18-21) as Samuel did of old (1 Samuel 1-4 with 1 Samuel 7:15-17). It is closely
linked with these last days prior to His death as He comes there as God’s Servant
(Acts 4:27) to be examined as God’s perfect sacrifice, ready for the offering of
Himself outside the camp (Luke 23:26-31; Hebrews 13:11-14), and its final
destruction (Luke 13:34-35; Luke 19:41-44; Luke 21:5-24; Luke 23:28-31). In the
first part of Acts (1-6, mentioned eleven times, followed by silence) it is closely
linked with the first outreach of the church, although deliberately not mentioned
in Acts 2 so that the ‘birth’ of the church might be seen as from above, and it is
then seen as rejected, first in the defence of Stephen (Acts 7:48-49; compare
Luke 17:24), and then by its treatment of Paul (in Acts 21-24 it is mentioned ten
times), once Paul has been ejected from its doors (Acts 21:30). The Good News,
having first gone out from Jerusalem (Acts 1-12) in fulfilment of the idea in
Isaiah 2:2-4, will then go out from a replacement of the Temple, which is found
in those appointed by the Spirit to carry forth His word, the church of Christ as
symbolised by the church in Syrian Antioch - Acts 13:1 onwards. This will be the
result of the Lord coming in power to Jerusalem (Isaiah 52:7; Mark 9:1; Luke
22:69; Luke 24:49) and the Apostles going out to the world bearing figuratively
‘the vessels of the Lord’, now to be made available to the whole world (Isaiah
52:11-12, see our commentary on Isaiah). The Servant will take out light to the
nations (Isaiah 42:6; Isaiah 49:6). The difference is that in Acts Luke depicts the
Spirit as transferring His effective working to Antioch, because Jerusalem had
again accepted a false and blasphemous king (Acts 12). From now on in the New
Testament the true Temple and the true Jerusalem is seen to be above (Acts
7:48-49 with 55-56), although present on earth in His true people as part of the
corporate Servant (Acts 13:47) and as bearer of the Good News. The earthly
Temple and the earthly Jerusalem are replaced by the heavenly Temple and the
heavenly Jerusalem (Galatians 4:26-27; Hebrews 12:22-24; and in Revelation
constantly, for in Revelation 11, as the description of it makes clear, the ‘Temple’
there is the true people of God in Jerusalem, not a building. See our commentary
on Revelation), of which in Christ the people of God on earth are a part by the
Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16; 2 Corinthians 6:16-18.
End of Excursus.
The goodly stones and offerings have already been mentioned above. The huge
white stones and marble columns, the glistening gold plating and special ‘gifts’
such as the huge vine of pure gold whose clusters were each as tall as a man,
gripped all by their splendour, and looking from the Mount of Olives, possibly
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while the sun was setting and making all shine with radiant light, we can
understand why it impressed the disciples. It looked indestructible, and glorious.
Only Jesus’ heart was filled with the thought of that hugely costly gift of the poor
widow, which surpassed all the others. And when He heard their admiration for
the Temple He clearly felt it necessary for them to see that their minds should be
on other things, rather than on a Temple which would shortly be destroyed.
Their glorying in the Temple was all a part of their failure to see things from the
right perspective.
Verses 5-24
The Coming Destruction Of The Temple (21:5-24).
The destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD is now for us a simple
fact of history of which today many are unaware, and most see it as almost an
irrelevance, but its implications were in fact huge for us all. To the disciples, and
the Jews of Jesus’ day, and in fact to the whole history of the Christian world, its
significance was certainly immense. For the Temple was seen by many Jews, and
even by large numbers of Christian Jews, both those in Palestine and those
scattered around the world, as the indestructible centre of the world and of all
true worship, and its destruction therefore was seen as shaking the very
foundations of the world.
But what its destruction did accomplish was to free those who still looked to the
Temple from its powerful grip. From the time of its destruction all Christians
together, both former Jew and former Gentile, could concentrate their attention
and their thoughts on the One Who had replaced the Temple, on Jesus Christ
Himself, through Whom alone we can come to God. As Jesus had said, ‘the time
is coming when neither on this mountain (Gerizim) or in Jerusalem will you
worship the Father. --- But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true
worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father
seeks to worship Him’ (John 4:21; John 4:23).
So as the powerful words that follow demonstrate to all, it was God’s purpose to
destroy it as His purposes moved forward among the nations, and it is made
clear here that He would do it in order to replace it with the promise of the
coming of the Son of Man from Heaven and with the testimony of His disciples
pointing to Him on earth. His message throughout all Jesus’ words here is this,
let all men therefore now look, not to the Temple, but to the Son of Man, the
Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom the Apostles will give their testimony (Luke 21:13),
and Who will come again in glory (Luke 21:27) to bring about the final
redemption of His own (Luke 21:28). For the Temple is now of the past.
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Verses 5-36
Prophecy Concerning the Destruction of the Temple, the Scattering of the Jews,
and the Coming of the Son of Man (21:5-36).
This passage connects with the last in that the disciples begin to discuss the
offerings that had resulted in the building of the glorious Temple which they
could see before them, first as they left the Temple, and then as they sat on the
Mount of Olives (Marl Luke 13:3-4). These had been great indeed. Tens of
thousand of people who flocked to the Temple would be amazed and awed at the
splendour of the gifts made to the Temple by the very wealthy. It was one of the
wonders of the world. The disciples had been amazed and awed when they had
first seen it, and they were equally amazed and awed every time they came to
Jerusalem and saw it. It had that kind of splendour that no provincial ever got
used to.
Luke here wants us to contrast this amazement at the glory of the gifts of the
wealthy with Jesus amazement at the glory of the gift of the widow. Note indeed
the contrasts within these verses, which Luke has deliberately associated
together:
1). Certain of the Scribes devour widow’s houses.
2). The rich toss into the temple treasury of their abundance.
3). The poor widow gives all that she has.
4). Jesus admires the giving of the widow. She has laid up treasure in Heaven.
5). The disciples admire the giving of the rich who display their gifts.
6). Jesus declares that the Gentiles will devour the Temple.
So Jesus tells His disciples to look well at the gifts displayed on the Temple. And
that these splendid gifts, admired by all, will in fact be pulled down along with
the stonework of the Temple until not one stone is left on another, (while the few
lepta of the widow will go on for ever and be remembered in the Day when those
who are Christ’s receive their reward). It was the sight of the Temple, shining in
the sun as they were leaving, that drew the admiring comments from the
disciples, and the same splendour as they looked at it from the Mount of Olives
(Mark 13:3-4) that made them ask when it would happen, but Luke mentions
none of this. He continues the discourse without mentioning the change of place
because he wishes a direct contrast to be made with the gift of the widow and for
it to be closely connected with the Temple ministry (Luke 21:1-4; Luke 21:37).
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He wants his readers to see that the Temple is being given its warning.
It is difficult to overstress the splendour of the Temple. It was a huge edifice built
on top of the Temple mount. Its building commenced in 19 BC and the main
structure was completed within ten years, but the finishing touches went on and
were still in progress at this time, not being finished until 64 AD (just in time for
its destruction). It was enclosed by a wall of massive stone blocks, each block on
average about 1 metre high and five metres long. The front of the Temple was
covered in gold plating that shone brilliantly in the sun, and its stones were of
glistening white marble. There were stones in the Temple measuring 20 metres
by Luke 2:5 metres by Luke 2:25 metres (68 feet by 9 feet by Luke 7:5 feet),
while the Temple area itself was about 450 metres (1450 feet) by 300 metres (950
feet). All was on a vast scale. The large outer court, the Court of the Gentiles,
which surrounded the inner courts and the Sanctuary on three sides, was
surrounded by porticoes built on huge pillars. It was in these colonnades that
Rabbis held their schools and debates (Luke 2:46), and the Temple trading took
place (Luke 11:15). It would be here that the early church came together for
worship.
Steps leading up to the first inner court, the court of the women, demonstrate
that it was at a higher level than the outer court. This court was surrounded by
balustrades on which were posted the signs warning death to any Gentile who
trespassed within. (Two of these inscriptions have been discovered). Beyond this
balustrade was the Court of the Women, through which men had to go to reach
the court of Israel, and in which were found the thirteen trumpets for collection
of funds for the Treasury. A further court, raised above the court of the women,
and reached by further steps, was the Court of Israel, and beyond that again was
the Priests’ Court which contained the great Altar built of unhewn stone.
Within that Court, raised above all, was the holy shrine itself, entered through a
porch that was 100 cubits high and 100 cubits wide (a cubit was 45 centimetres
or 17:5 inches). The doorway that gave entry was 40 cubits high and 20 cubits
wide, and another door, half the size, led into the Holy Place. This was 40 cubits
long and 20 cubits wide, and separated from the Most Holy Place by doors over
which hung a curtain (the veil). The Most Holy Place was 20 cubits square and
40 cubits high. But the height of the sanctuary was increased by an additional
empty room above it which raised the height of the whole to 100 cubits.
Josephus described the holy shrine and its magnificence thus. ‘Now the outward
face of the Temple in its front wanted nothing that was likely to surprise men’s
minds or their eyes, for it was covered all over with plates of gold of great weight,
and, at the first rising of the sun, reflected back a very fiery splendour, and made
those who forced themselves to look on it turn their eyes away, just as they would
26

have done at the sun’s own rays. But this Temple appeared to strangers, when
they were at a distance, like a mountain covered with snow, for as to those parts
of it which were not gold they were exceeding white.’ Some of these great white
stones have been unearthed within the last decade.
This was the magnificence that so drew the attention of the disciples as they left
the Temple, and then gazed at it from the Mount of Olives (Mark 13:3-4). They
had seen it before but they never ceased to marvel at its massiveness and
splendour, and as the sun went down they were again struck by the sight of it
and began to discuss its marvellous stonework of massive white stones, and the
glistening gold of the offerings made by Herod and others that shone in the sun.
It drew a sense of wonder from their hearts. And these gifts had been made by
great and powerful men. They never ceased being filled with awe. No wonder the
widow’s lepta seemed unimportant to all but Jesus. But Jesus saw it totally
differently, for He knew it all for what it was.
So Luke deliberately make his introduction less personal and explanatory, and
less detailed than the other Gospels. He wants all concentration to be on the
message, and he wants attention to be maintained on the Temple (Luke 21:37).
So while he nowhere contradicts Mark about where the questions and the speech
took place, he is simply silent on the matter, thus intentionally linking the words
directly with the Temple.
It is clear that in this speech Luke is not only calling on Mark, but also on one or
more other sources, and it is interesting that if the identifiable Marcan extracts
are removed the discourse is still on the whole a conjoined whole, hinting at this
use of another source or sources. That is why he can give us words of Jesus
omitted by Mark. Mark seeks to make his version of the speech (a speech which
was probably a lot longer and more detailed than either Mark or Luke) carry
straight through from the sacking of Jerusalem and the arrival of the Desolating
Abomination, to the final coming of the Son of Man, so as to link the two, the
initial judgment, which ends with the coming of the Desecrating Desolator, the
great Beast of Daniel, being seen as followed by the final judgment and the
coming of the glorious Son of Man. But Luke makes clear that there is a period
of time of unknown dimension between the two, what Jesus calls ‘the times of the
Gentiles’ (Luke 21:24). Revelation will later depict this in terms of ‘a thousand
years’ (Luke 20:4-7), a long period of unknown length which is within the
perfection of God’s plan, when the martyred people of God will also reign with
Jesus above.
But the first three Gospels all make clear that there must be some considerable
delay before His coming, although none can know how long. And during this
period Jesus makes clear that there will be world catastrophes, ‘worldwide’
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preaching of the Good News including persecution, and then the defiling of the
Temple. It is only when these have taken place that the Son of Man will come.
The passage that now follows divides strictly into two. The first part deals with
the answer to the question of the disciples, in response to His comment about
what was to happen to the Temple (Luke 21:5-24). The second part deals with
the final coming of the Son of Man (Luke 21:25-38). In the Section chiasmus the
first part of this passage (Luke 21:5-24) is paralleled by Jesus weeping over
Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44). That parallels the destruction of Jerusalem as
described here. The second part of this passage (Luke 21:25-36) parallels His
triumphal coming to Jerusalem on an ass (Luke 19:28-40). The entry in Kingly
humility on the ass thus parallels the coming of the Son of Man in glory.
Jerusalem had refused to receive Him. A desolated Jerusalem would welcome
His return.
The first part (Luke 21:5-24) then divides into three parts, the troubles coming
on the world found in Luke 21:8-11, the persecution of God’s true people and the
opportunity to be a testimony through it (including in Mark the proclamation of
the Good News to all nations) which is found in Luke 21:12-19, and the taking of
Jerusalem and the scattering of the Jews among the nation found in Luke
21:20-24.
Because of his readership and his background Luke is more wary of how he
presents Jesus’ words about the coming destruction of the Temple than Mark or
Matthew, for he wants his readers to understand. Instead of speaking of the
‘Desolating Abomination’, a phrase pregnant with significance to Jews, but
meaningless to Gentiles, he paraphrases it in terms of Jerusalem being
surrounded by armies (accompanied by their idolatrous insignias) which will
bring about its desolation. Alternatelt we may see it as signifying that he is
quoting further words of Jesus, which Jesus gave in explanation of the phrase
‘desolating abomination’ (or ‘the desecration that appals’) not recorded by Mark
and Matthew. But the ideas are actually the same. The Desolating Abomination
in the time of the Maccabees, described in Daniel 11:31 and extended into the
future in Daniel 9:27, from which the phrase comes, had been the result of
Antiochus Epiphanes, together with his armies, surrounding Jerusalem and
desecrating the Temple. That Luke’s description in Luke 21:20 does actually
refer to the same thing as Mark 13:14; Matthew 24:15 is clear when we make a
verse by verse comparison of Luke with Matthew and Mark which we will
consider when we come to it.
We note now how Luke, with consummate skill, takes his sources and moulds
them into one in the form of a chiasmus, in the way we have constantly seen him
do previously, while yet still remaining faithful to the words of Jesus. That these
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are actually the words of Jesus comes out in the fact that these magnificent
words require their author to be a magnificent personality, and as this
magnificence is found in the passage in all the first three Gospels it is clearly not
that of the writers. It must be found in it being the words of One Who stood out
among His generation, along with His other words elsewhere that bear the same
stamp. (Comparison with other writings reveals how distinctive Jesus’ style was.
He spoke as none other spoke). We will now analyse the chiastic construction of
the speech.
Analysis of 21:5-28.
a As some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and
offerings, He said (Luke 21:5).
b “As for these things which you behold, the days will come, in which there will
not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down” (Luke
21:6).
c They asked him, saying, “Teacher, when therefore will these things be? and
what will be the sign when these things are about to occur?” (Luke 21:7).
d ‘And he said, “Take heed that you are not led astray. For many will come in
my name, saying, ‘I am he’, and, ‘The time is at hand’, do not go after them. And
when you shall hear of wars and tumults, be not terrified, for these things must
necessarily come about first, but the end is not immediately” (Luke 21:8-9).
e Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom, and there will be great earthquakes, and in many and various places
famines and pestilences, and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven”
(Luke 21:10-11).
f “But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you, and will persecute
you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings
and governors for my name’s sake” (Luke 21:12).
g “It will turn out to you for a testimony” (Luke 21:13).
h “Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate beforehand how to answer,
for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries will not be
able to withstand or to gainsay” (Luke 21:14-15).
i “But you will be delivered up even by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolk, and
friends, and some of you they will cause to be put to death” (Luke 21:16).
h “And you will be hated of all men for my name’s sake, and not a hair of your
head will perish” (Luke 21:17-18).
g “In your patience endurance you will win your souls” (Luke 21:19).
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f “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded with armies, then know that her
desolation is at hand, then let those who are in Judaea flee to the mountains, and
let those who are in the midst of her depart out, and let not those who are in the
countryside enter into it” (Luke 21:20-21).
e “For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be
fulfilled” (Luke 21:22).
d “Woe to those who are with child and to those who are breast-feeding in those
days! For there will be great distress on the land, and wrath to this people. And
they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations,
and Jerusalem will be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the
Gentiles are fulfilled” (Luke 21:23-24).
c “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of
nations, in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the billows, men fainting for
fear, and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world. For the
powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Luke 21:25-26).
b “And then will they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great
glory” (Luke 21:27).
a “But when these things begin to come about, look up, and lift up your heads,
because your redemption draws near” (Luke 21:28).
We note that in ‘a’ the disciples look up at the ‘goodly stones’ and ‘offerings’ of
the Temple, the centre of Jewish worship and deliverance, and in the parallel in
complete contrast they are to lift up their heads, watching for their coming
redemption and deliverance from above. They are to seek the things which are
above where He will shortly be seated at the right hand of God (Luke 22:69),
setting their minds on things above and not on things on the earth (Colossians
3:1-2). In ‘b’ the things that they now see will be thrown down so that not one
stone will be left on another, and in the parallel the Son of Man will come with
power and great glory, for it is He Who replaces the glory of the Temple (John
2:18-21). In ‘c’ they ask Him for signs, and in the parallel signs are given. In ‘d’
will come false dawns to Jerusalem and Israel, and rumours of dreadful things,
and in the parallel come the reality of those warnings and the news that rather
than the coming of dawn, it is darkness that is coming on Jerusalem and Israel.
In ‘e’ are outlined the dreadful things coming on the world, and in the parallel
reference is made to the days of vengeance. In ‘f’ is outlined the future
tribulation for the disciples, and in the parallel future tribulation for Jerusalem
when the Roman armies invade (called in Matthew, with its aftermath, ‘great
tribulation’). In ‘g’ the tribulation of the disciples will be a testimony, both to
men and God, and in the parallel through their patient endurance they will win
their inner life. In ‘h’ they will be provided with the means to withstand their
adversaries in court, something which they will require, for in the parallel they
will be hated of all men for His name’s sake. And in ‘i’, centrally to what they
would now have to face in the future are given the consequences for them, and
the warning that they will be hated by family and friends, and some will even be
put to death. For this is all a sign of the fire that is now coming on the earth that
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will revolutionise their future (Luke 12:52-53 with 49), and bring about all that is
being described.
As we have previously observed the passage may now be seen as divided into two
main parts (with the first part divided into three), the two parts describing first
the coming future judgment on Jerusalem, prior to the scattering of the Jews in
Jerusalem throughout the world, which came about in 70 AD and what followed,
and secondly the glorious appearing of the Son of Man. They are separated by
‘the times of the Gentiles’.
BURKITT, “Our blessed Saviour being now ready to depart from the temple,
nevermore after this entering into it, and his disciples showing him, with wonder
and admiration, the magnificent structures and buildings thereof, apprehending
that in regard of its invincible strength it could not be destroyed; not
considering, that sin will undermine and blow up the most magnificent and
famous structures; for sin brings cities and kingdoms, as well as particular
persons, to their end. Not one stone, says Christ, shall be left upon another;
which threatening was exactly fulfilled after Christ's death, when Titus the
Roman emperor destroyed the city, burnt the temple and Turnus Rufus, the
general of his army, ploughed up the very foundation on which the temple stood;
thus was the threatening of God fulfilled, Zion shall be ploughed as a field, and
Jerusalem shall become an heap. Jeremiah 26:18
Learn hence,
1. That sin has laid the foundation of ruin in the most flourishing cities and
kingdoms; Jerusalem, the glory of the world, is here by sin threatened to be
made a desolation.
2. That the threatenings of God are to be feared, and shall be fulfilled, whatever
appearing improbabilities there may be to the contrary. 'Tis neither the temple's
strength nor beauty that can oppose or withstand God's power.
BENSON, “Luke 21:5-6. And as some spake of the temple, how it was adorned
with goodly stones — Such as no engine now in use could have brought, or even
set upon each other. Some of them (as an eye-witness who lately measured them
writes) were forty-five cubits long, five high, and six broad, yet brought thither
from another country. See this more fully elucidated Matthew 24:1, and Mark
13:2. And gifts — Which persons delivered from imminent dangers, had, in
accomplishment of their vows, hung on the walls and pillars. The hanging up
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such αναθηματα, or consecrated gifts, was common in most of the ancient
temples. Tacitus speaks of the immense opulence of the temple at Jerusalem.
(Hist. Luke 5:8.) Among others of its treasures, there was a golden table, given
by Pompey; and several golden vines, of exquisite workmanship, as well as
immense size; which some have thought referred to God’s representing the
Jewish nation under the emblem of a vine, Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalms 80:8; Ezekiel
15:2; Ezekiel 15:6. He said, The days will come when there shall not be left one
stone upon another — The accomplishment of this prediction is proved and
illustrated, Matthew 24:2, and Mark 13:2.
NISBET, “THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST
‘And as some spake of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and
gifts, He said, As for these things which ye behold, the days will come, in the
which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown
down.’
Luke 21:5-6
This discourse of our Lord is one of the most difficult for us to follow and apply,
and yet it has made a vivid impression on the imagination of the world. It may be
worth while therefore to try reverently to gather what was in our Lord’s mind
when He spoke—what was transitory, what was permanent. It is impossible to
leave on one side a matter of such vital importance as the final destiny of the
world, and the promised Presence or coming of Christ. We notice at once these
two things.
I. The transitory and the permanent.—First that, as, in an exhibition of
dissolving views, one scene melts imperceptibly into another, so that at a given
time we hardly know what is before us, so here a great deal of our Lord’s words
refer to an immediate, local catastrophe of tremendous importance to His
hearers—the fall of Jerusalem. And then His words dissolve, melt almost
imperceptibly into another scene—the end of the world, His own Second
Coming, and the dread phenomena which will precede and accompany it—the
one event being connected with the other as that which symbolises with that
which is symbolised.
II. The coming of Christ.—Secondly, we must remember and realise that there
are certain images in Holy Scripture which cannot be reproduced pictorially, nor
represented in human language. Our Blessed Lord Himself seems to say that a
full knowledge of what is meant by the Day of Judgment, and when it will be, is
impossible to the human understanding. But there is a bright side to final
judgment. We are apt to forget this. In spite of the imagery of flame and
earthquake, of wrath on sinners, of shame and endless doom, the idea which
most strongly impressed itself on the early Church was the Presence of Christ,
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the victory of Christ, the coming and permanent reign of Christ.
III. The Presence of Christ.—His Presence! It is what they so longed to see. How
impatient they were for it, how they hurried forward in imagination the slow
winding up of the ages. ‘O thou enemy,’ they would say, ‘destructions are come
to a perpetual end,’ and Christ is coming. His will be a great Presence. This is a
side of the Judgment Day of which we think too little, one which surely has
power to diminish much of our fear.
IV. What has the Presence been to us?—As we look back over life we each of us
can see what the Presence, the coming of Christ has been to us. ‘Thy song shall
be of mercy and judgment.’ Life has had its destructions. God nips off those
things that we valued—youth, health, strength, and vigour—in order to develop
the life of saintliness, the life of union with Himself. If you would meet your
Judge with trembling hope, if you would rejoice in His Presence with exceeding
great joy, go and tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King; go and
proclaim the paradox of welcome: ‘Let the floods clap their hands, and let the
hills be joyful together before the Lord, for He cometh to judge the earth.’
—Rev. Canon Newbolt.
Illustration
‘In the dark days of the Catacombs, where they found Christ in the mystic
Eucharistic Presence on the altar which covered the bones of some friend or
some earlier martyr who had laid down his life for Christ, the Presence was a
hurried and a fleeting one, to be followed too often by dark days of persecution
and anguish. It was so difficult for them to keep Christ’s Presence with them in
its living beauty. Think of them as they walked through the heathen city, with its
consecrated sin, and its sights and sounds of shame, which formed part of the
religion of the heathenism which surrounded them. We, too, do we not know how
difficult it is to retain the Presence of Christ? How difficult we find it to breathe
for any time the rarified air of heaven! We fall asleep on the Mount of
Transfiguration; we are dazed and stupefied in the hour of mysteries, when the
atoning agony of Gethsemane and Calvary is revealed to us. The Presence of
Christ—it lingers, perhaps, as a memory infrequent and glorious in those “days
of the Son of Man,” when heaven seemed nearer to us, and the veil of the
sacraments was thinner, and temptation less obtrusive, and sin less persistent,
the Presence of Christ always and everywhere, in a time when there should be
neither day nor night, but one day. This was the conception that swallowed up
all others in the loving heart of the Christians as they talked of that coming of
Christ which was a Presence joyful and abiding.’
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BI 5-6, "Adorned with goodly stones and gifts
On the object and use of the sanctuary
I.
THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH CHRIST UTTERED THESE WORDS.
Every attentive reader of Holy Scripture must have remarked this fact, in the history
of the Bible, viz., that whenever and wheresoever God revealed His choice of a spot
among the sons of men, to “place His Name there”—where He might be especially
present with them, to receive their worship, and to bestow on them His blessing—
that spot was always directed and made to be as great a contrast, and as much
superior as possible to all other places in which men ordinarily abode. But all this, as
the same attentive reading of Holy Scripture must also convince us, was immediately
directed to its own great and specific objects. It was designed by God to lead their
thoughts upward to Himself. The temple had been a great probationary blessing to
the Jews; it had been ordained of old by God, for the advancement of their essential
and everlasting good; and it was now foredoomed to such ruin and desolation, that
“there should not be left in it one stone upon another, which should not be thrown
down,” only because of the way in which they had abused their privileges, trampled
on their mercies, and forgotten the covenant while they walked in the very presence
of their God.
II. APPLICATION:
1. These words of our Lord give no sort of encouragement to the notion which
has often prevailed, and has been much repeated in our days, of its being utterly
immaterial what kind of fabric we dedicate to the Most High; that all must be
alike to Him, and the meanest sufficiently acceptable in His sight; inasmuch as
“He dwelleth not in temples made with hands,” and can be as well honoured
within walls of clay, as beneath the stateliest roof that ever was raised by man.
When men live, according to their respective degrees, in a state which God has
prospered—dwelling, if not, like David, in “houses of cedar,” at least in those of
competence and comfort—it is not for them to suffer the “Ark of God to remain
within curtains”; and though to the wanderer in the desert, or the colonist in his
new settlement, the best tent or cot he could procure might be meet for the
service of his God, yet it is not so for a society of Englishmen, dwelling in the very
bosom of their highly favoured country and Church. How far are we using our
Redeemer’s sanctuary upon earth, in such a manner as that, when this fails, we
may be received into “a building of God; a house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens” We must not forget the possibility there is that we might be walking
in the judicial blindness of Israel, whilst we are possessed of all the light, and all
the means of grace, with which the Christian Church is entrusted. (J. Puckle.)
Admiration for the outward form rather than for the spiritual meaning
Is there any one Christian, however austere, who, on entering the body of our
cathedral not for the first time but the twentieth, and allowing his eye to wander
along its avenue of columns, or into the depth at once so mysterious and so
impressive, of the distant choir; or towards those arches, at once light and bold,
which, like a vigorous vegetation on each pilaster, throw out and intertwine their
stems at the centre—is there any one who has not said to himself, How beautiful this
is! what harmony! what unison among all these stones! what music in this
architecture! what poetry in this edifice! Those who reared it are dead, but though
34

dead they still speak to us; and their conception, full of adoration, their conception, a
species of prayer, is so united to their work, that we think we feel it and breathe it as
we advance within these walls which carry us over a vista of ages. Such is our feeling;
and if we are not alone, we can scarcely help giving it utterance. Thus, doing: what
the disciples did when they exclaimed, What stones! what buildings! might we not
hater ourselves addressed by our Lord in words of reproof, “Is it this you are looking
at?” And why should we not be reproved if our soul goes no farther than our eye, if it
stops where our eye is obliged to stop; if symbols, appearances, visible things, hold it
captive; ii the splendours of art chain down our heart to the earth instead of raising it
to heaven? This is the censure which Jesus Christ passes on His disciples. He had
looked into their souls, and there detected that lust of the flesh, that lust of the eye,
and that pride of life, which are the three connecting chains by which the enemy of
God links us closely to outer darkness. The man and the Jew were equally revealed in
that involuntary exclamation; man, dazzled by whatever is seen, and filled with
contempt for what is not seen; the Jew, proud of the exterior pomp of a worship, the
deep meaning and internal idea of which had long escaped him, and attaching
himself obstinately to the law—in other words, a shadow, at the very moment when
this law was more than ever a shadow.
Is it this you are looking at? What! these few grains of dust, which are large only
because you are little? What! these gifts extorted by fear, vanity, and custom, from
individuals who refused to begin by giving themselves to God? What! the gorgeous
falsehood of these marbles and gildings, of all those ornaments, the pious import of
which has long since been forgotten? Is it this you are looking at? (A. Vinet, D. D.)
Looking at the true grandeur of Christianity
Christianity has taken a form in the world; it has become visible. Travelling over
ages, and propagating itself in the world, it has assumed a place among the things to
which the world pays regard; and besides this grandeur of space and duration which
procures it a species of respect on the part of the most indifferent, it has, by its
intellectual grandeur (I mean by the grandeur of the ideas which it expresses, and
those which it suggests), captivated the regard and admiration of thinkers. Thus is it
great after the fashion of the world. Beware of admiring it most of all for that
grandeur. Let us fear lest its true grandeur escape our notice. Let us not allow our eye
to be misled, and oblige Jesus Christ to say to us again, “Is it this you are looking at?”
How great our misfortune if we should have entered the empire of the invisible only
to link ourselves more securely to the visible, and if in the kingdom of spirit we
should have been able only to find the world! How miserable, if trusting to those vain
and hollow words, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the
Lord,” we should neglect, as the prophet says in the same place, thoroughly to amend
our ways and our doings (Jer_7:4-5). To look only to this twofold greatness of
Christianity, the material and intellectual, is truly to do like the first companions of
Jesus Christ, to fix our look upon stones. “fast thoughts, secular traditions, splendid
recollections, all these are stones; cold materials, hard and dead. There are other
stones, living stones, which form together a spiritual building, a holy priesthood
(1Pe_2:5). (A. Vinet, D. D.)
Warnings
1. That sin has laid the foundation of ruin in the most flourishing cities and
kingdoms; Jerusalem, the glory of the world, is here by sin threatened to be made
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Luke 21 commentary

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