Chapter 12 is the appendix to the scene in the Pharisee’s house. The Lord Jesus speaks to the multitude and warns them against the hypocrisy of which He had just been the victim. What a fine style the Lord can use when He chooses! For the slander against Him, softly whispered in the ear, the day shall come when the angel of the Lord shall proclaim it on the housetop. That answers the insinuations which go abroad in a well-ordered society.
We next have the subject of fear—the fear of man—and see how beautifully the Lord discusses it. The words of Jesus would give you a well-regulated mind, but your mind must first own its relationship to God as its great paramount circumstance.
He tells you to fear God rather than man. He shows you that if you fear Him, you need not do so as a slave, but as a son—not servilely, but with confiding reverence. Would you stand in fear before a Friend who has numbered the hairs of your head?
Then in verses 8-9 the Lord Jesus goes on to say, as it were, “Now you who confess Me, do not fear the Pharisees. Confess Me, for the day is coming when I will confess you.” Could anything be more perfectly suited to extract fear? If you confess Him before perishing men, He will confess you before the indestructible glory of God.
The Lord then goes on: “Unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.” We are vessels of the Holy Spirit. A personal insult to the Son of Man might be forgiven, but refusal of that which the church carries is without remedy.
Next, He takes up the subject of worldliness (ch. 12:13-21). “One of the company said unto Him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me.” But the Lord answers, as it were, “Do you not understand Me? Is it My business to make a man richer in this world?”
The Lord has promised deep peace to His people, but never honor or wealth. This man mistook His mission, so He now preached a sermon on covetousness. In doing so, the Lord Jesus gives a striking parable. There is nothing evil about the plentiful bringing forth of a good harvest. Plentifulness is a mercy, but I will tell you what is in it—not evil, but danger. And so it proved with the man in the parable, for he began to turn it to account of his earthly mind, rather than to the account of the Lord of the soil.
If people are in a thriving way of life, very right, I say, to employ their hands and skill, and it is a mercy if the crop be plentiful. But still, there is danger in it.
J. G. Bellett (adapted from Notes on the Gospel of Luke)