THE account of Zacchæus is one of those peculiar to Luke and we may readily see how strikingly it furthers the moral aim of the Spirit in this Gospel. Its collocation too may be at once explained on the same principle, supposing, as I do, that the facts occurred while the Lord was passing through Jericho, whereas the blind man Bartimæus did not receive sight till He was on His way outside. But it seemed good to the Holy Ghost here, as often similarly elsewhere, to bring the narrative of Zacchæus into such a position with the parable that follows as to illustrate by them the general character, not only of His first advent but of His second, thereby correcting many a mistaken thought into which men, yea disciples, were apt to slip then end since.
“And he entered and was passing through Jericho; and behold a man by name called Zacchæus,469 and he was chief tax-gatherer and he was rich. And he was seeking to see Jesus who he was, and could not for the crowd, because he was little in stature. And he ran on before and got up a sycamore469a that he might see him, because he was going to pass that [way]. And when he came to the place, Jesus looking up saw him and said to him, Zacchæus, make haste and came down; for today I must469b abide in thy house. And making haste he came down and received him joyfully.”
The Lord had already in parables set forth Divine grace to the lost sinner as such, above all in the prodigal son. We brave now the actual history of a publican, a chief tax-gatherer, and a rich man, to whom grace sent salvation that very day. But here it is well to distinguish what is often overlooked. some allege that Zacchaeus was a man without the fear of God, and unconverted; others compare him with Simeon in the temple. We should not forget that salvation is more than new birth, that it could only then be pronounced by the Messiah; and that it is now in virtue of redemption proclaimed far and wide through faith in His name. It is the primary Christian blessing that a soul needs and receives in a dead and risen Christ; but it should never be confounded with that awakening which accompanies quickening by the Spirit. As the due understanding of this clears up many difficulties created by the confusion prevalent in Christendom from the days of the “fathers” till our, own time, so it will be found, helpful here. The Lord vindicated the grace of God toward one in the waist possible position, the loathing of the proud Pharisee. He who struggled against the many obstructions in the way, who hesitated not to cast off all conceit of dignity and to brave all ridicule in order to see Jesus, heard with astonishment the voice of the Good Shepherd call His sheep by name and invite Himself to remain at his house. Certainly He was none other than the Messiah, who could thus tell all things and would thus meet the desire of a heart that dared not hope for such an honor. What a wonder, yet no wonder! He who knew all knew Zacchaeus; He who asked a drink from the Samaritan woman whose life He read asked Himself to the house of the chief tax-gatherer. It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God; so that they who heard said, “Who then can be saved?” Now He proves what He then answered, that the things which are impossible with men are possible with God; for assuredly He entered the house, not to get but to give.
But nothing is so unintelligible to a man as God’s grace. “And when they saw [it] they all murmured,470 saying that he had turned in to lodge with a sinful man.” How blessed that so He could, and so He would! How hopeless the blank for no if it were not so! It suits His love so to deal with those who have not the smallest claim.
“And Zacchæus stood and said to the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have by false accusation exacted anything of any man, I restore fourfold.471 And Jesus said to him, To-day salvation is comes to his house, inasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham: for the Son of man came to seek and to save that which is lost.”473 It is not that the Lord discredited the chef tax-gatherer’s account of his feelings and ways. Such was his character, such his habits, in a sorrowful position doubtless, with a delicate if not scrupulous conscience. But why this before One Who had already proved that all was known to a heart that could not misjudge? Why talk even of what the Spirit had produced in presence of the salvation—bringing the grace of God? The Lord denies not, spite of his occupation, that he too was a son of Abraham; but if He Himself were the Messiah, and at this very time presenting Himself as such for the last time on earth, beginning at Jericho, He was the Son of man in grace and humiliation on the way to death, yea, the death of the cross; the Son of man come to save what is lost. What else was worth speaking of? This day salvation was to his house.
As this affecting incident maintains the activity of grace according to God’s aim in the first, advent of the Lord, even while He was testing them for the last time as the Messiah so the following parable vas uttered to dispel the wrong expectations which filled their minds who so soon had forgotten that first He must suffer many things, and be ejected of this generation, and that the introduction of the Lord’s world-kingdom must await His second advent. Those who were on the stretch for the immediate sitting up of that kingdom were self-deceived. If He was near Jerusalem, He was near the cross, not the manifestation of His kingdom yet. “But as they were hearing these things, he in addition spoke474 a parable because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and they thought that the kingdom of God was about to be manifested475 immediately. He said therefore, certain high-born man went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return.476 And he called ten of his own bondmen and delivered them ten minas,477 and said unto them, Trade while I am coming.”478 It is obvious that this is quite distinct from a similar parable in the last prophetic discourse, on Olivet, and this not less certainly distinct in internal marks, as we shall see throughout. There the lord exercises his rights and gives as he pleases according to his knowledge of the varying capacities of his servants. Here all receive the same at starting, and their respective use of the deposit in business (figuratively) is the main point—the responsibility of the servants in the one., the sovereignty of the master in the other. Equally in contrast is the result in each: the good and faithful bondmen in Matthew alike enter into the joy of their lord, while in Luke each receives authority according to his labor and its fruit.
Again, there are weighty moral instructions connected with this parable, but distinct from what we find later in Matthew. For here we read that, “His citizens hated him and sent a message after him, saying, We will not that this [man] should reign over us.”479 Such was the spirit of the Jews, who not only rejected the Messiah, but, as another has well said, sent a message after Him as it were in the martyrs they slew, refusing Him glorified no less than humiliation.
“And it came to pass on his return, having received the kingdom,480 that he desired his bondmen to whom he gave the money to be called to him in order that he might know what each had gained by trading. And the first came up saying, Lord, thy mina has produced ten minas. And he said to him, Well [done] thou good bondman, because thou past been faithful in that which is least, be thou in authority over ten cities. And the second came saying, Lord, thy mina has made five minas. And he said also to this one, And thou, be over five cities. And the other came, saying, Lord, behold thy mina which I kept laid up in a napkin. For I feared thee, because thou art a harsh man: thou takest up what thou layedst not down, and reapest what thou didst not sow He says to him, Out of thy mouth I will judge thee, wicked bondman. Thou knewest that I am a harsh man, taking up what I laid not down, and reaping what I did not sow.481 And Why gavest thou not my money into a bank, and at my coming I should have received482 it with interest? And he said to those that stood by, Take from him the mina and give [it] to him that hath ten. And they said to him, Lord, he has ten minas. I say unto you, that to every one that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not that even which he hath shall be taken.”483 Here we have the responsible service of Christians till Jesus returns, with His judgment then of their service Meanwhile. It is not that the faithless bondman will not safer the results of his unbelief, like the elder brother who despised his father and scorned his brother. But our Evangelist tells the tale of grace, without describing, the awful doom of those who corrupt or turn from it. It is in the earthly accompaniment that we hear of Divine vengeance. Thus the picture is made still more complete; for we have also the public execution of judgment on the guilty citizens, the Jews, at His appearing.
“Moreover, those mine enemies who would not [have] me to reign over them, bring them here and slay [them] before me.”484 The judgment of the habitable world is a truth which practically has dropped out life, if not the creeds, of Christendom.
Next follows the approach to Jerusalem.485 The Messiah indeed, but Son of man, presents Himself according to the prophecies going before even when they are not formally cited, with the fullest parabolic instruction just given that the opposition to Him was deliberately willful and conclusive, for it was not only that His citizens (the Jews) despised Him, coming as He did in humiliation for the deepest purposes of Divine love, but they “hated” Him and sent a message after Him, saying, “We will not have this man to reign over us.” Awful to hear from His lips, those were His “enemies,” above all others, who would not that He should reign over them. His heavenly glory was at least as repugnant to them as His earthly abasement. They appreciated neither the grace which brought Him down nor the glory to which as man He was exalted. What could He say then but “Bring them here and slay [them] before me”? As ever, the moral springs are laid bare in our Gospel, and, if evil, judged.
“And when he had said these things, he went on before, going up to Jerusalem. And it came to pass when he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, towards the mountain called Olivet, he sent two of his disciples, saying, Go away into the village over against you; in which as ye enter ye shall find a colt tied, on which not one of men ever sat: loose and bring it. And if any one ask you, Why do ye loose [it]? thus shall ye say unto him, Because the Lord hath need of it. And they that were sent, having gone away, found even as he had said to them. And as they were loosing the colt, its owners said to them, Why loose ye the colt? And they said, Because the Lord486 hath need of it. And they brought it to Jesus; and, having cast their garments on the colt, they set Jesus thereon;487 and, as he went, they strewed their garments in the way.”
The labor of ancients and moderns to find in this remarkable incident a type of the Gentiles obedient t the Gospel, as the Lord received and rode on the colt, seem to me far from intelligent. Bather was it very simply the evidence of His Divine knowledge and the assertion among. the Jews of His, claim as Jehovah Messiah, verified by facts a d by the proved subjection of human hearts where God was pleased to produce it to the honor of His Son. Hence the minuteness with which the words which passed and the accomplishment of all He said are noted by the Spirit. Doubtless, as in all the Gospels, so here it was in meekness and lowliness He entered; still, it was as the King according to the revealed mind of God. It was not yet the day of trouble when Jehovah will hear His Christ with the saving strength of His right hand; nor was yet the time come for the Jew to glory in the name of Jehovah. He alas! as indeed the Gentiles who knew not God, manifested his hostility to the Christ of God. But One was there who for them and us in all the degradation and selfishness and guilt of the fallen race was willing to bear the uttermost rejection of man, the forsaking of God Himself crowning it, that we might be brought to God, owning our sinfulness and resting on the grace which reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
But the power of God, which wrought in hearts prepared by grace as a suitable testimony to Jesus at that moment, was still more pointedly marked in what Luke next records, and Luke only as it is characteristic of the Holy Ghost’s design in his account. “And as he was drawing near, already at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began with rejoicing to praise God. with a loud voice for all the mighty works which they had seen, saying, Blessed the King that cometh in Jehovah’s name: in heaven peace, and glory in [the] highest.488 And some of the Pharisees from the crowd said to him, Teacher, rebuke thy disciples. And answering he said, I say unto you that, if these shall be silent, the stones will cry out.”
It is not merely the crowds or those who went before and followed as in Matthew and Mark; nor is it the cries of the children in the temple, saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” as in the first Gospel most appropriately. Here we are told of the whole multitude of the disciples, and hence words only befitting their lips; though surely given of God with a wisdom reaching far beyond their measure, as is known not seldom among the witnesses of Christ. “Peace in heaven tad glory in the highest” looks to things higher and more immediate than the preceding words cited from Psa. 118. and common to all four Evangelists.
It is a striking change even from the announcement of another multitude, near the beginning of this Gospel, who suddenly appeared with the angelic herald of the Saviour’s birth, and praised God, saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, in men good pleasure.” Such was the suited celebration of the Son now incarnate, that marvelous and mighty fact which introduced God Himself into the. most touching relations with humanity, and laid the basis for the manifestation of the Father in the person of Christ, as well as for the accomplishment of the infinite work of redemption, on which hangs the righteous Vindication of God, and the gracious deliverance of the elect, and the reconciliation of all things in heaven and on earth to His own everlasting glory. And the heavenly host speak of the grand result as, then invisibly enshrined in Him just born, a babe in Swaddling clothes and lying in a manger in Bethlehem. God was pleased to manifest His good pleasure in men, not in angels and so to fill the highest seats with glory to Himself and earth with peace.
But, in fact, Jesus was, as the prophets had fully and distinctly foreshown He must be, despised and rejected of men. This postponed in Divine wisdom, though it could not frustrate, the purpose of God. Rather did it make room for a new and higher display of what was hidden in God from ages and generations, and now made known in the Church to the principalities and powers in heavenly places. However this be, the disciples in their outburst of praise (now that the Lord was rejected and with Him meanwhile peace for the earth gone, and division and a sword the consequence of the struggle between light and darkness) do nevertheless anticipate “peace in heaven and glory in the highest.” If the former proclaimed the general purpose of God, the latter revealed His ways even when the enemy might seem on the point of triumphing. If earth disown and cast out the Saviour, if the Jews refuse the Messiah because He is incomparably more than the Son of David and come to bring about incomparably deeper and larger purposes, it is but for a season a transfer of the seat of blessing to heaven for the brightest and fullest accomplishment of God’s will mind. The kingdom itself became manifestly of heaven thereby, and the exaltation of the rejected Lord is to sit down meanwhile on the right hand of the Majesty on high, Satan being utterly defeated by man in the person of the woman’s Seed on the throne of the highest; and the kingdom over the earth will follow the moment that it pleases the Father, Who is meanwhile forming a people united to Christ His Son, His body, His bride, to be with Him where He is at His coming. Peace is in heaven, because He was going there victoriously, having made peace by the blood of the Cross, Himself our peace now, whether we have been Jews or Greeks.
If Pharisees, insensible to His glory, complained of the praises of the disciples, the Lord could not but tell them that they were more obdurate than the stones beneath and around them.
Observe further that instead of the dispensational lesson of the fig-tree cursed as in Matthew, and in Mark with yet minuter details for instruction in service, we have the grace of the Lord in His weeping over the guilty and doomed city. “And when he drew near, on [seeing the city, he wept489 over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things for thy peace: but now they are hid490 from thine eyes. For days shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall make a rampart about thee and compass thee round and keep thee in on every side, and level thee with the ground and thy children in thee; and not leave in thee stone upon stone; because thou knewest not the season of thy visitation.”491 Every word of the warning was punctually fulfilled in the siege of Titus; but what grace shone out of that heart surcharged with grief for the people so blindly to their own ruin refusing Himself Who wept over them in a love thus truly Divine and perfectly human!
It was Matthew’s office to bring out the woes He solemnly pronounced over the holy city now so unholy, not their civil destruction, but rather the sanctuary once His Father’s house, now their house left to them desolate, yet not hopelessly. “For” as He said then, “ye shall not see me till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of Jehovah.” All that is left out in this part of our Gospel, and the more remarkably, as we find the cleansing of the temple afterward. “And entering into the temple he began to cast out those that sold, saying to them, It is written, And my house shall be a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of robbers.”492 Without agreeing with Jerome, who saw in the act of our Lord the greatest miracle He ever wrought, one may note profitably how, even at such a moment when irresistible energy accompanied His indignant rebuke of their profanity and cast such unworthy traffic outside the sacred precincts, He employs as ever the written Word a His ground and warrant.
In harmony with this we read that “he was teaching day by day in the temple; and the chief priests and the scribes; and the principal men493 of the people sought to destroy him, and did not find what they could do, for all the people hung on him while hearing.” The Word of God from His lips especially told on the consciences of men. The religions leaders, having long rejected Him, not only lost all right feeling but were given up to a murderous hatred non to be satisfied. Such ever proves the world when confronted with the light of God; and withal the perfect love of God in Christ only provoked it the more.
Endnotes
469 Verse 2.― “Zacchaeus.” His is a Hebrew name: see “Zacchai” in Ezra. 2:9; Neh. 7:14.
469a Verse 4.― “Sycamore”: cf. 17:6, “sycamore.”
469b Verse 5.― “Must”: cf. 13:38; also John 4:1.
470 Verse 7.― “Murmured”; or, “began to murmur” (imperf.).
471 Verse 8.― “Fourfold”: see Exod. 22:1.
“By false accusation.” This rendering (A.V.) is defended by Field against. Bevy. (“wrongfully”).
472 Verse 9.― “Salvation,” of 2:30.
“Is come,” ἐγένετο: an example, cited by Burton (§ 46), of the frequent use of the aorist, expressed by the English perfect.
See G. Whitefield’s sermon on “The Conversion of Zacchæus.”
473 Verse 10.―CY: 1 Tim. 1:15, which these words may have originated.
D. L. Moody preached from this verse. See also Whyte’s “Bible Characters,” No. LXXVIII. (on Zacchæus).
474 Verse 11.― “As they heard these things,” that is, in or near Jericho. The similar parable of the Talents was spoken in Jerusalem: cf. Matt. 24:1, 25:14.
“He in addition spoke,” προσθεὶς εῖπε: a Hebraism which occurs again in 20:16 and seems to indicate use of a Hebrew source.
“Thought that the kingdom was about (μέλλει) to be immediately manifested.” They evidently believed that the “Seventy Weeks” of Daniel were running out.
475 “Manifested.” Again, the future aspect of the Kingdom: see note on 9:27.
476 Verse 12.― “To return,” ὐποστρέφειν, only in this parable, which is distinct from that of the Talents in Matthew (see A, R. Habershon, p. 309f). Jülicher gives a false lead in treating the one parable as a different version of the other. This may have been suggested by the embassy of Archelaus to Rome, and his slaughter of disaffected subjects on his return (Joseph. “Antiqq.,” chapter 17.; “Wars,” chapter 2). Like the parable of the Great Supper, it is in two portions: see note on 14:8, 21.
477 Verse 13 ff.― “Minas.” The “talent” of Matthew’s parable was worth sixty times as much as Luke’s “pound,” which represents one hundred drachmas, or about £3 11s. Od.: cf. note 384.
478 “While I am coming.” “This should be our view of our Lord’s Advent; He is even now on His way hither” (Spurgeon’s Sermon, 1960).
What the disciple has now he holds as a steward; but it will he his own on the Lord’s return. In Matthew the talents are given to each according to his capacity (δύναμις). Whilst the χάρις in Luke is common to both, parables, Matthew’s talent is a χάρισμα in the Pauline sense of that word. The thought has been well worked out by Lütgert (p. 162f).
The case of Apollo strikingly illustrated the combination of “capacity” and “gift”: cf. Acts 18:24, 27 with 1 Cor. 12:7.
479 Verse 14.― Cf. Ps, 2:3.
480 Verse 15.― “Having received the kingdom”; cf. Matt. 28:18. These two passages enable us to determine when the Kingdom of Heaven enured. At present it is in “mystery.” The ἐνέγεια of it will operate whim Rev. 11:15 (see R.V.) is fulfilled.
481 Verse 22: ―Cf. Ps. 18:26; also verse 27 here, and note at 13:1. Wellhausen is one of those scholars who regard it as a mistake to suppose that Luke made use of Josephus.
482 Verse 23, ― “Received”; or “demanded (exacted)”: cf. cf. V.
483 Verse 26.―For the issues of exercise, neglect or abuse of gift (χάρισμα: see note 478), cf. Matt. 25:29; also 1 Cor. 3:15, “he shall suffer loss.”
484 Verse 27.―For Messiah’s vengeance on His enemies, cf. Ps. 21:9. This is quite distinct from what comes before us in Luke 20:13, 16, the action of the FATHER.
485 Verse 28 ff.―Cf. Matt. 21:1-9; Mark 11:1-10. It was on Saturday the 8th Nisan that our Lord took supper with Lazarus: On the next day (Sunday) He presented Himself as Messiah by the procession into the city.
486 Verse 31.― “The Lord.” The man seems to have been a disciple, perhaps made such by the early Judean ministry. Cf. note at 13:34
487 Verses 30-36.― “A colt,” as in Mark and John. Much inane criticism has been expended on Matthew’s record that there were both an ass and her colt. See Zech. 9:9, with regard to which it is needless to rely on the revised rendering of the vav (AV. “and”; R.V. “even”). Matthew quotes the LXX.; some MSS., however, shewing a second ἐπί in that no Evangelist’s account. The Apostle Matthew was an eyewitness, to whom knowledge of the structure of Hebrew poetry may be credited as good as that of moderns. Observe that the two disciples had the Lord’s direction to bring the mother, and therefore did not act from their own mere sense of prudence. Christ’s use of the two may be ascribed to His tenderness: the restiveness from discomfort of the colt would be counter acted by the presence of its mother, whose movements may have been regulated by the Lord’s hand resting upon her, that she might the better keep pace with the colt, on which He rode: this is probably all that the first of our Gospels means by “He sat on them.”
488 Verse 38.―All four Gospels vary in the form given to this anthem. For Luke’s arrangement of the words, cf. the Hebrew accents of Ps. 118: (117.) 25, which connect “in the Name” with “Blessed” (see Westcott on John 12:13).
The Lord at length definitely took the Messianic position; not from any development in His convictions, as some critics represent, but because there was no longer any danger of a popular rising, “the forces arrayed against Him being,” from the human point of view, “too strong” for that (Adeney).
489 Verse 41.― “Wept”; or “sobbed,”, “wailed” (ἔκλαυσεν), used of Peter in Mark 14:72; whilst in John 11:35 we have, of the Lord, ἐδάκρυε, “shed tears.”
490 Verse 42.― “This thy day”; see marg. of American Revision; and so for “thy peace.”
“Peace... hid.” God’s covenant of peace (Exod. 34:25, 37:26) cf. Ps. 122:6. ff. and Isa. 48:18, and, in particular, Ps. 131:13-16.
491 Verse 43f.―These verses critics have used for determination of the date the Third Gospel. The statement is deemed so circumstantial that those of the “historical” wing imagine that Luke’s record was written after the event. But prediction might in principle extend as well to detail as to any merely general statement, if the event could be foreseen at all.
Cf. Joseph. “Wars,” 5: 6, 2 and 12, 2.
For the “children,” cf. Ps. 137:9. For visitation (ἐπισκόπη), see note on 7:16 above.
492 Verse 15f.―J. Weiss differs from most other critics in defending the order shown by John’s Gospel in this connection (p. 180).
The cleansing of the Temple (in the Court of the Gentiles) recorded in the Fourth Gospel and that here spoken of are not “duplicates” as critics dream. Ezek. 24:13 refers to a double cleansing. In the last Gospel the Lord speaks of His Father’s house; here of the horse as His own. Cf. note 117 on Mark, and note 55f. on John.
This was five days (John 12:1, 10 before the Passover (the 15th of Nisan), and so, on the truth day of the month, when lambs had to be procured, in keeping with Exod. 12:3. The “Lamb of God” had become matter of traffic a few hours earlier on the same Jewish day (Matt. 26:14).
493 Verse 47f.― “Was teaching day by day”: the Wednesday could not have been spent, as often supposed, in seclusion, whereby all in chapters 20, would be crowded into the Tuesday. Cf. 21:37f. His teaching here would be in the Court of the Women.
Luke uses the expression “principal men” also in Acts 25: 2. Cf. 20:20: the Lord’s steps being dogged, and His words distorted (Ps. 37:32, 38:12).
There is a sermon of Luther on verses 41-48 (p. 335).