One of Luke's purposes in his Gospel and in Acts appears to have been to show why God stopped working particularly with Israel and began working with Jews and Gentiles equally in the church.181The Jewish leaders' rejection of Jesus was a major reason for this change. The conflict between them is an important feature of this Gospel.
This section of the Gospel includes six incidents. In the first one Jesus served notice to the religious leaders in Jerusalem that the Messiah had arrived. In the remaining five pericopes, the Pharisees found fault with Jesus or His disciples. Mark stressed the conflict that was mounting, but Luke emphasized the positive aspects of Jesus' ministry that led to the opposition.182
This miracle was to be a "testimony"to others about Jesus' person (v. 14). It authenticated His person and His teaching. It also shows the blessings that Jesus brought to people, specifically the spiritual cleansing of those whom sin has polluted (cf. 4:18).
5:12 One of the cities of Galilee is what Luke meant in view of the context. He revealed his particular interest in medical matters again by noting that leprosy covered this man completely. There could be no doubt that he was a leper. As Peter had done, this man fell on His face before Jesus (cf. v. 8). As Peter, he also appealed to Jesus as "Lord"(v. 8). This address was respectful and appropriate for addressing someone with special power from God.183The leper was very bold in coming to Jesus since his leprosy separated him from normal social contacts. His conditional request cast doubt on Jesus' willingness to heal him, not His ability to do so. It may express his sense of unworthiness to receive such a blessing.
5:13 By stretching out His hand and touching the leper, Jesus was doing the unthinkable (Lev. 13). He probably did this to express His compassion for the man as well as to identify Himself beyond doubt as the source of his healing (cf. Exod. 4:4; 6:6; 14:16; 15:12; Jer. 17:5; Acts 4:30). Jesus' words offered him reassurance (cf. v. 10). Jesus' authority extended to power over disease and ceremonial uncleanness. Doctor Luke again noted an immediate cure (cf. 4:35, 39).
"The most significant lesson from the cleansing of the leper story is that even outsiders can experience God's healing grace."184
5:14 The healing of lepers was a messianic act (cf. 7:22). Therefore the man's "testimony"to his cleansing amounted to an announcement of Messiah's arrival. Jesus did not want this man to fail to go to Jerusalem and present the required offering for the healing of leprosy (Lev. 14:1-32). If the man had broadcast his healing, he may never have reached the priests there and the crowds may have mobbed Him even worse than they were already doing.
5:15-16 Luke omitted the fact that the man disobeyed Jesus (Mark 1:45) perhaps because this would have undermined his emphasis on Jesus' authority. Instead he stressed the spread of the story (lit. "word,"Gr. logos) concerning Jesus. The spread of the gospel concerning Jesus is a major theme of both this Gospel and the Book of Acts. This healing increased Jesus' popularity. However, His response was not to rest on popular approval but to renew His dependence on His Father by praying in a solitary place.
". . . the mainspring of his life was his communion with God, and in such communion he found both strength and guidance to avoid submitting to temptation."185
Luke did not mention the fact that increased popularity hampered Jesus' activities (Mark 1:45). He also listed hearing Jesus before experiencing healing in this verse reflecting the priority of Jesus' preaching over His miracles.
Luke documented Jesus' authority in yet another area of life by showing His power to forgive sins. In this incident the miracle is secondary and the issue of Jesus' authority is primary. Jesus claimed to be God by forgiving the man's sins.
5:17 Again Luke stressed the priority of Jesus' teaching ministry. The Pharisees and scribes had come to hear what He was teaching. These men, first appearing in Luke here, were the guardians of Israel's orthodoxy. The Pharisees were a political party in Israel noted for their strict observance of the Mosaic Law as traditionally interpreted by the rabbis. Some of these doctors of the law (i.e., scribes, lawyers) were probably Pharisees, but probably not all of them were. The figure is a hendiadys indicating that they were religious watchdogs and does not mean that other religious leaders were absent.186
Luke viewed the power of God as extrinsic to Jesus (cf. John 5:1-19). Jesus did not perform miracles out of His divine nature. He laid those powers aside at the Incarnation. Rather He did His miracles in the power of God's Spirit who was on Him and in Him as a prophet.
"Why would Luke say that the power of the Lord was present for him to heal' if Jesus could heal at any time, under any condition, and solely at his own discretion? This statement only makes sense if we view healing as the sovereign prerogative of God the Father, who sometimes dispenses his power to heal and at other times withholds it."187
In Acts, Luke would stress that the same Spirit is on and in every believer today, and He is the source of our power as He was the source of Jesus' power.
5:18-19 This incident happened in Capernaum (Mark 2:1), though that fact was irrelevant for Luke. Other details in his account again add the touch of reality to it.
5:20 The zeal with which the four friends of the paralytic sought to bring him into Jesus' presence demonstrated their faith, namely their belief that Jesus couldheal him. However the sick man also appears to have had faith in Jesus or he would not have permitted his friends to do what they did. Perhaps Luke did not mention the paralytic's faith because to do so might have detracted from his emphasis on Jesus' power. God responds to the faith of others when they bring friends in need to Him in prayer as well as in person.
We should not regard physical healing and spiritual forgiveness as an "either or"proposition. Rather true forgiveness includes full restoration in every area of life. Jesus graciously did "both and"for this man though often God does not restore people to complete physical health, some not until after death.
"Miracle becomes a metaphor for salvation. All Jesus' miracles should be seen in this light."188
5:21 The religious leaders were correct. Only God can forgive sins. However, they were unwilling to draw the conclusion that Jesus was God.
"Whenever Luke reports what someone is thinking, instruction from Jesus usually follows."189
5:22-23 As a prophet, Jesus may have had special insight into what His critics were thinking (cf. Matt. 9:3; Mark 2:6). It was easier to say, "Your sins have been forgiven you,"because no one could disprove that claim. In another sense, of course, both claims were equally difficult because healing and forgiving required supernatural power.
5:24 Jesus did the apparently more difficult thing to prove that He could also do the apparently easier thing. This is the first time Luke recorded Jesus calling Himself the "Son of Man."This was a messianic title with clear implications of deity (Dan. 7:13-14). Since the Son of Man is the divine judge and ruler, it is only natural that He would have the power to forgive. It was only consistent for Jesus to claim deity since He had just demonstrated His deity by forgiving the man's sins. He would demonstrate it by healing him.
5:25-26 The paralyzed man responded in faith immediately (Gr. parachrema) to Jesus' command.
"The ability of the paralyzed man to resume his walk of life is a picture of what Jesus does when he saves. His message is a liberating one."190
Everyone present glorified God because of what Jesus had done. One of Luke's objectives was to glorify God and to encourage his readers to do the same in this Gospel and in Acts (cf. 2:20). The amazed reaction of the crowd recalls the same response of the people on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:11-12; cf. Luke 7:16; 13:17; 18:43; Acts 3:9; 8:8). Perhaps Luke meant to draw the reader's attention to "today,"the last word that is also the first word Jesus spoke when He announced the fulfillment of Isaiah 66:1-2a (4:21). The "day"of the Messiah's appearing had arrived, and the witnesses of this miracle testified to it albeit unknowingly.
Luke's emphasis in his account of this incident was on Jesus' authority and the people's acknowledgment of it. He also stressed Jesus' ongoing mission (cf. Acts).
"Three quest stories appear early in the narrative of Jesus' ministry, in Luke 5 and 7. Three reappear toward the end of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem, in Luke 17, 18, and 19. Thus they appear early and late in the narrative of Jesus' ministry prior to his arrival in Jerusalem. The tendency to bracket Jesus' ministry with this type of story suggests the importance of these encounters in Jesus' total activity."191
Luke painted Jesus bestowing messianic grace on a variety of people: a demoniac, a leper, a paralytic, and now a tax collector. He liberated these captives from a malign spirit, lifelong uncleanness, a physical handicap, and now social ostracism. Again the Pharisees were present. In Levi's case, Jesus not only provided forgiveness but fellowship with Himself. The incident shows the type of people Jesus called to Himself and justifies His calling them.
5:27-28 Levi (Matthew) was a tax collector ("publican,"AV). However he was not a chief tax collector as Zaccheus was (19:2) nor does the text say that he was rich, though he appears to have been. Nevertheless the Pharisees and most of the ordinary Jews despised him because of his profession. He collected taxes from the Jews for the unpopular Roman government, and many of his fellow tax collectors were corrupt.
Jesus' authority is apparent in Levi's immediate and unconditional abandonment of his profession to follow Jesus. Levi obeyed Jesus' as he should have and in so doing gave Luke's readers a positive example to follow (cf. 5:11). Luke's terminology stresses Levi's decisive break with his former vocation and his continuing life of discipleship.
5:29-30 The joy of Levi and his outcast guests contrasts with the grumbling of the Pharisees and scribes. The religious leaders objected to Jesus and His disciples' eating and drinking with these tax gatherers and sinners because of the risk of ceremonial defilement they ran by doing so. They focused their criticism on Jesus' disciples rather than on Jesus, perhaps because Jesus was so popular.
5:31-32 Jesus used a proverb to summarize His mission (cf. ch. 15). He used the word "righteous"in a relative sense and perhaps a bit sarcastically since no one is truly righteous, though the Pharisees considered themselves righteous. A person must acknowledge his or her need for Jesus and His righteousness before that one will benefit from the Great Physician's powers. This acknowledgment of need is what Jesus meant by repentance. Repentance leads to joy in Luke as well as to life (cf. 15:7, 10, 22-27, 32). Luke stressed the positive call of sinners to repentance in this Gospel and in Acts.
"The connection between 5:32 and 19:10 suggests that they form an inclusion. That is, we have similar general statements about Jesus' mission early and late in his ministry, statements which serve to interpret the whole ministry which lies between them."192
The setting of this controversy is the same as the previous one, Levi's banquet.
5:33 The religious leaders (v. 30; Mark 2:18) and John's disciples (Matt. 9:14; Mark 2:18) raised the question of fasting. They did so because it was another practice, besides eating with sinners, that marked Jesus and His disciples as unusual (cf. 7:34). Since Jesus preached repentance (v. 32), why did He not expect His followers to demonstrate the accepted signs that indicated it? These questioners made Jesus and His disciples appear to be out of step by contrasting their behavior with that of John the Baptist's and the Pharisees' disciples. All of those people appeared to be sympathetic to Jesus and righteous.
The Old Testament required only one day of fasting, namely the day of Atonement (Lev. 16:29), but over the years additional fasts had become traditional. Evidently John and his disciples fasted periodically. The Pharisees fasted every Monday and Thursday (cf. 18:12) as well as on four other days in memory of Jerusalem's destruction (Zech. 7:3, 5; 8:19).193Jesus did not oppose fasting, but He criticized its abuse (4:2; 22:16, 18; Matt. 6:16-18).
Luke alone mentioned the reference of Jesus' questioners to prayer. He probably did this to clarify the circumstances in which fasting happened for his readers. The questioners implied that Jesus' disciples neglected prayer as well as fasting.
5:34-35 Jesus compared the situation to a wedding, which calls for joy. He meant that He was the bridegroom who had come to claim His bride, Israel (cf. Isa. 54:5-8; 62:5; Jer. 2:2; Hos. 2:18, 21; Ezek. 16). His disciples were His friends who rejoiced at this prospect with Him. Therefore to compel them to fast was inappropriate. Thus Jesus rebuked His questioners. However, Jesus implied that the bridegroom would die. This was one of Jesus' early predictions of His death. Then His disciples would fast. They probably did this after His crucifixion but before His resurrection. They also do it after His ascension and before His return to the earth (cf. John 16:16-24).
5:36 Jesus next illustrated with parables the fact that His coming introduced a radical break with former religious customs. He did not come to patch Judaism up but to inaugurate a new order. Had Israel accepted Jesus this new order would have been the messianic kingdom, but since the Jews rejected Him it became the church. Eventually it will become the kingdom. Simply adding His new order to Judaism would have two detrimental effects. It would damage the new order, and it would not preserve the old order. It would also appear incongruous. Only Luke's account includes the first effect, that it would damage the new order. Luke evidently included this to help his Christian readers see that Israel and the church are distinct.
"The real point is the incompatibility of the two pieces of cloth, and the contrast of new and old is implicit. . . . Whereas in Mk. the deficiencies of Judaism cannot be mended simply by a Christian patch', in Lk. the emphasis is on the impossibility of trying to graft something Christian onto Judaism."194
5:37-38 The second illustration adds the fact that the new order that Jesus had come to bring has an inherently expanding and potentially explosive quality. The gospel and Christianity would expand to the whole world. Judaism simply could not contain what Jesus was bringing since it had become too rigid due to centuries of accumulated tradition. Here Luke's account is very close to Mark's.
5:39 Only Luke included this statement. Jesus' point was that most people who have grown accustomed to the old order are content with it and do not prefer the new. They tend to assume that the old is better because it is old. This was particularly true of the Jewish religious leaders who regarded Jesus' teaching as new and inferior to what was old.
Jesus contrasted four pairs of things that do not mix in this pericope. They are feasting and fasting, a new patch and an old garment, new wine and old wineskins, and new wine and old wine. His point was that His way and the way that the Jewish leaders followed and promoted were unmixable. The religious leaders even refused to try Jesus' way believing that their old way was better.
The final two instances of confrontation with the Pharisees that Luke recorded involved Sabbath observance. The Sabbath was one of Judaism's main institutions, and Jesus' violation of traditional views on Sabbath observance brought the religious leaders' antagonism toward Him to a climax. Here was a case in point that Jesus' new way could not exist with Israel's old way. Sabbath observance had its roots not only in the Mosaic Law but in creation. Furthermore its recurrence every seventh day made it a subject of constant attention.
6:1-2 Mark recorded that the Pharisees voiced their question to Jesus, but Luke wrote that they asked Jesus' disciples. Probably they did both. Luke chose to relate their question to the disciples apparently because Jesus then stepped in and answered for them (v. 3). Thus Luke showed his readers Jesus' position as the Master who comes to the defense of His disciples. Luke alone also mentioned the disciples rubbing the ears of grain in their hands, probably to give his readers a more vivid picture of what really happened.
The law permitted people to glean from the fields as they passed through them (Deut. 23:26). However the Pharisees chose to view the disciples' gleaning as harvesting and their rubbing the grain in their hands as threshing and winnowing as well as preparing a meal. The Pharisees considered all these practices inappropriate for the Sabbath.
6:3-4 Jesus drew an analogy from Scripture (cf. 1 Sam. 21:1-9). His point was twofold, first that ceremonial traditions are secondary to human need.
What David did was contrary to the Mosaic Law, yet Scripture did not condemn him for what he did (cf. 2 Chron. 30:18-20). What Jesus' disciples did was not contrary to the Mosaic Law, so the Pharisees should not have condemned them for what they did. Why did the Scriptures not condemn David for what he did? They did not because of who David was, namely the Lord's anointed. He occupied a special place in Israel. God permitted him to violate the ceremonial law, but not the moral law, without condemnation. In this sense he was above the law. (This may explain why God allowed David to perform some normally priestly functions such as offering sacrifices without rebuke.) Therefore the Son of Man (v. 5), who is superior to David, had the right to set aside a Pharisaic tradition, not a divine law, for the welfare of His followers.
6:5 Jesus' second point was that the Son of Man (cf. 5:24), because of who He is, has the right to violate the Sabbath. Jesus was not violating the Sabbath by doing what He did, but He had the right to do so. This was another claim to divine authority, an emphasis that we have seen running through this part of Luke's Gospel. God is greater than the laws He has imposed, and He can change them when He chooses to do so.
"David did not allow cultic regulations to stand in the way of fulfilling his divine calling of becoming king of Israel. Jesus has a similar mission which makes him Lord of the Sabbath,' one who is authorized to decide when Sabbath regulations must be set aside to fulfill a greater divine purpose."195
This incident elevates the readers' appreciation of Jesus' authority to new heights in Luke.
This incident happened on a different Sabbath from the one in the preceding incident (v. 6). Note the similar terms Luke used to introduce both events. He evidently placed it here in his narrative because it builds on the idea of Jesus' authority over the Sabbath and advances it even further than the previous pericope does. As the authoritative Son of Man, Jesus declared that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Both incidents involved a controversy about what is more important, ceremonial law or human need. The Pharisees believed that it was unlawful to do virtually anything on the Sabbath, though they hypocritically did good to themselves but would not do good to others. They did permit life-saving measures, midwifery, and circumcision on the Sabbath.196
6:6-8 Luke again noted the primacy of Jesus' teaching over His working of miracles (cf. 4:15-16, 31-33). He also mentioned that it was the right hand of the man that was useless, a detail of particular interest to a doctor. This detail shows the seriousness of the man's case. By now the religious leaders (cf. v. 7) were looking for an occasion to criticize Jesus publicly believing that they had a case against Him. Jesus probably knew their thoughts at least because their intentions were now clear (cf. 5:22). He could have known their thoughts because He was a prophet. He therefore consciously provoked conflict by calling the man forward for healing. His initiative demonstrates His authority and His sovereignty.
6:9 Jesus' question had two parts. He first asked if it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath or if it was lawful to do evil. The obvious answer was that doing good was lawful but doing evil was not lawful. God had instituted the Sabbath for the welfare of humankind. His attitude of love should have characterized the Israelites as they observed the day. They, too, should have made it a special day for the blessing of people. The second part of Jesus' question particularized it and pointed to its ultimate consequences. Obviously Jesus was speaking about saving a life (Gr. psyche) from physical destruction, not saving a soul from eternal damnation.
6:10 There was only one answer that the religious leaders could give. It was lawful to do good and unlawful to do evil on the Sabbath. However, they refused to answer because their answer virtually would have given Jesus their approval to heal the man. They did not want to do that because they wanted to retain their traditional abstinence from Sabbath activities. Jesus proceeded to do good and healed the man's hand, but He did so without performing any physical work. There was nothing the critics could point to as an act that Jesus performed for which they could condemn Him. This method of healing pointed to Jesus being a prophet sent from God at least and to His being God at most.
6:11 Understandably the response of Jesus' critics was violent. "Rage"or "furious"translates the Greek word anoia, which means senseless wrath (cf. 2 Tim. 3:9).
"He humiliated the religious leaders and healed the man all at the same time without even breaking the Pharisees' law. It is no wonder that the religious establishment was furious and sought a way to get rid of Him."197
Verse 11 is the climax of Luke's section that describes the beginning of Jesus' controversy with the religious leaders (5:12-6:11). Luke did not say that this incident led them to plot Jesus' death, as Matthew and Mark did. The intensity of the conflict did not interest Luke as much as Jesus' sovereign authority over His enemies.
