Luke 10:25 shows a precious thing. We never touch the borders of neighborly love but in the perfect life of Jesus. “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.” Leaving him half dead—there was our condition. He was ruined, but his life was still in him. How well for us that our life was still in us when we met Jesus!
Here we see the striking impotency of the law to take up our condition, but the Lord also shows that the representatives of the law did not keep what they taught. I learn here, to the eternal confusion of all lawyers, priests and Levites, that they have never kept what they set forth. Were they authorized to pass by on the other side? The law will never do for me, a sinner, or make its abettors and assertors the thing it would have them to be.
Why is the blessed Lord of glory called a Samaritan? Because He was a stranger. A stranger from heaven has come down to show neighborly love on earth. He has come to exhibit to earth what earth never could exhibit to itself. And how did He do it? First, “He . . . came where he was.” Who could unfold such a thought in its fullness! Did not the Lord do so with you?
And when he saw him he had compassion. What is the source of all the salvation found in Him? Was there anything in you to draw it out or provoke it? No! Something in Him suggested it. The poor waylaid man was silent from first to last. Was not the poor prodigal silent when they clothed him with the best robe, and Joshua, too, when they clothed him with garments in Zechariah?
There is no more blessed answer to the grace of God than the stillness of faith. Poor waylaid man! Let Him do to you as He will. The Lord acts from Himself—at the suggestion of His own compassion. And he poured in oil and wine. He had with him the very wealth that was suited to the man that lay in the road. The Lord Jesus came with the very fullness that was fitted to your condition.
“And set him on his own beast.” He exchanged places with us. He was rich, and we were poor. He became poor that we might be rich.
Next, He had made Himself responsible for the man, and He would look after him. That is the gospel, and that is neighborly love. Again I say, the blessed Lord was forced on a picture of Himself when He was asked, “Who is my neighbor?” And now, how are we to act the part of the Samaritan? We must begin by being debtors to Jesus before we can follow Him in neighborly love. We must be the waylaid man before we can be the Samaritan. How simply He unfolds the story of our necessity and His fullness.
The chapter (Luke 10) ends with the scene in the house of Martha and Mary—the richest table at which we have seen Him. Here He is seen as an intimate family friend. We shall have this by and by in heaven. May we ever desire it.
J. G. Bellett (adapted from Notes on the Gospel of Luke)