It was an unwonted sound to man. The evidently divine grace of the Lord acted on the spirit of one that sat at meat with Him, who, hearing that which was far more suitable to heaven than ever was as yet seen carried out on the earth, said, “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.” Our Lord then proves that this is a great mistake as far as concerns man's readiness to answer the grace of God. Hence He puts the case in the following parable: “A certain man made a great supper and bade many.” There was no lack of condescension and goodness to win man on God's part. His heart went out to any. He invited according to His own largeness of mercy and grace. “And he sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come, for all things are now ready.” This Gospel, like Paul's epistles, shows that God even in His grace does not forsake, in the first instance, prescribed order. So Paul, when he went to any place, went first to the synagogue; and in explaining the gospel in the epistle to the Romans, says, “To the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.”
Though God has no respect of persons, He nevertheless does heed the ways that He has Himself established. This makes so much the less excusable the lack of faith on the part of the Jew. God never fails—man always. Favored man only makes the greater show of his own unbelief. Here the message to them that were bidden was, “Come, for all things are now ready.” Such is the invitation of grace. The law makes man the prominent and responsible agent; it is man that is to do this, and, yet more, man that must not do that. Man therein is commanded to love God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength, and with all his mind. But the commandment, just as it is, is wholly unavailing, because in this case man is a sinner and loveless. No law ever produced or called out love. It may demand but cannot create love; it is not within the nature or power of law to do so. God knew this perfectly; and in the gospel He becomes Himself the Great Agent. It is He that loves, and who gives according to the strength of that love in sending His only begotten Son with eternal life in Him—yea, also to die in expiation for sin. Law demonstrated that man though responsible had no power to perform. He was incapable of doing God's will because of sin; but his pride was such that he did not, would not, feel his own incapability, or its cause. Were he willing to confess it, God would have shown him grace. But man felt no need of grace any more than his own guilt and powerlessness to meet law. So he slights the call to come, though all things are now ready.
“And they all (says the Lord Jesus), with one consent, began to make excuse.” No doubt these were the Jews—the persons who were bidden. “The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them; I pray thee have me excused.” Not that these things were in themselves wrong; they are the ordinary duties of men. It is not a person who is too drunk to come, or one living in misery in consequence of his grossness, like the prodigal son; but these might be decent respectable men. They were engrossed in their own things, they had no time for the supper of grace. God invites them, having prepared all things for them; but they were each so pre-occupied that none had heart or care for God's invitation. Is not this a true picture of the condition of man? yea, of man who has the Bible? of Christendom no less than Judea? It is an unbelieving excuse founded on alleged duties, certainly on present material interests. But what blindness! Does eternity raise no questions? Not to speak of judgment and its awful issues, has heaven no interest in man's eyes? If Christ or God be nothing, is it nothing to be lost or to be saved?
These are evidently serious questions, but man goes off without the moral courage to seek an answer from God. Here those bidden despised His mercy and grace, as they felt no need of it for their own souls. They lived only for the present. They blotted out all that is really admirable in man according to God's grace. They were living only for nature in its lowest wants—the providing what is necessary for food or for pleasure. The commonest creature of God, a bird or a fly does as much; the meanest insect not only provides food, but also enjoys itself. Does boastful man by sin degrade himself to be in profession no better than a butterfly, in practice far worse? “Another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.” He did not even say, “I pray thee have me excused.” His wife was an excellent reason in his eyes for refusing God's invitation. It was a question of a family in this world, not of God hereafter. It is clear that the real root of all unbelief is the absence of sense of sin, and no credit given to God. There is no sense of what God is, either in His claims or in His grace.
Again, “So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.” Such is the urgent message of grace, when the proud refused and God presses it on the most despised. Still we have before us the streets and lanes of the city. I think the Lord had Jerusalem as yet in view, though not put forward distinctly. At any rate, it was that which was orderly and settled in the world: only the despised and the wretched are now the express objects of the invitation. The busy great had slighted it—the lawyers and scribes, the teachers and Pharisees, were indifferent if not opposed. Henceforth it becomes a question of publicans and sinners, or anybody that was willing however wretched. “And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded; and yet there is room.” Then comes a third message. “The lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in that my house may be filled.” Thus we have the clear progress of the gospel among the Gentiles; and this too with the strong earnestness of divine mercy. “Compel them to come in that my house may be filled, For I say unto you, that none of those men which were bidden” (none of those that had the promises, but trifled with them when they were accomplished) “shall taste of my supper.”
Thus the whole case is brought before us, but with remarkable differences from the view given in Matt. 22. There it is much more dispensational. Hence it is “the kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king which made a marriage for his son.” All savors of this: the king, the king's son, the marriage feast—not merely a feast, and again the messages and His action attest it. The first mission there represents the call during Christ's ministry on earth; the second was when the fatlings were killed, that is, the work was done. This is followed by the judgment that fell upon those who despised the gospel message and maltreated the servants. “The king was wroth and sent forth his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned up their cities.” There is not a word about this in Luke. It was well that it should be brought forward in a gospel that was intended for the warning as well as the winning of the Jew. And there only was it written. The destruction of Jerusalem befell the Jews because of their rejection of Christ and of the Holy Ghost in the preaching of the apostles finally. Again, it is only in Matthew that we have the case of the man that was present without a wedding garment, setting forth the advantage that an unbelieving man would take of the gospel in Christendom, where we have the corruption of those who bear the name of the Lord, and their presumptuous pretension to be Christians without the slightest reality, without a real putting on of Christ. Need I say how common that is in Christendom? All this is left out in Luke, who confines himself to the moral dealings of God.
On the Lord's departure great multitudes go with Him, to whom He turns with the words, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters; yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” They might have thought that at any rate they would treat the Lord better than His message—so little does man know of himself. The Lord would not permit that the multitude, then following Him, should flatter themselves that they at least were willing to partake of the supper, that they were incapable of treating God with the contempt described in the parable. So the Lord tells them what following Himself involves. The disciple must follow Christ so simply and decidedly that it would seem to other eyes a complete neglect of natural ties, and an indifference to the nearest and strongest claims of kin. Not that the Lord calls for want of affection; but so it might and must look to those who are left behind in His name. The attractive power of grace must be greater than all natural fetters, or any other claims of whatsoever kind, over him who would be His disciple. And more than this; it is a question of bearing one's cross and going after Him. “Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” It is not enough to come to Him at first, but we must follow Him day by day. Whoever does not this cannot be His disciple. Thus in verse 26 we see the forsaking of all for Christ; and in verse 27 the following Christ with pain and suffering and going on in it.
Again, the Lord does not hide the difficulties of the way, but sets them out in two comparisons. The first is of a man that intended to build a tower, who had the folly not to count the cost before beginning. So it would be with souls now. Undoubtedly it is a great thing to follow Jesus to heaven, but then it costs something in this world. It is not all joy; but it is well and wise to look at the other side also. Then the Lord gives a further comparison. It is like a king going to war with one who has twice as many forces. Unless I am well backed up, it is impossible for me to resist him who comes against me with twice my array; much less can I make head against him. The inevitable consequence of not having God for us is, that when the enemy is a great way off, we have to send an ambassage and desire conditions of peace. But is it not peace with Satan, and everlasting ruin? “So likewise, whosoever he be of you, that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” A man should be prepared for the worst that man and Satan can do. It is always true, though not always apparent; but scripture cannot be broken, and in the course of a disciple's experience, a time comes when he is thus tried one way or another. It is well therefore to look all thoroughly in the face; but then to refuse Jesus and His call to follow, not to be His disciple, is to be lost forever.
The Lord closes all with another familiar allusion of everyday life. “Salt is good; but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be seasoned?” There is shown the danger of what begins well turning out ill. What is there in the world so useless as salt when it has lost the one property for which it is valued? “It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill, but men cast it out.” It is worse than useless for any other purpose. So with the disciple who ceases to be Christ's disciple. He is not suited for the world's purposes, and he has forsaken God's. He has too much light or knowledge for entering into the vanities and sins of the world, and he has no enjoyment of grace and truth to keep him in the path of Christ. The expression, “men cast it out” is perhaps too precise. It has a virtually indefinite meaning: “they cast it out,” i.e., it is cast out, without saying by whom. Savorless salt becomes an object of contempt and judgment. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear;” how solemn the call to conscience!