But when He took the twelve aside, He said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things which are written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be completed. For He will be delivered over to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon, and after they have flogged Him, they will kill Him, and the third day He will rise again.” But the disciples understood none of these things, and this statement was hidden from them, and they did not comprehend the things that were said.
Luke 18:31-34
Introduction
This is not the first time something like this happened to the disciples. Nearly word for word it happened earlier in Luke 9:22 and 9:44-45. In the first of these statements, He simply says He will be killed and very quickly applies that to the kind of persecution His disciples ought to expect. But in the second instance, He only tells them He will be delivered into the hands of men. And in that instance, they were “afraid to ask Him about this statement.” They were afraid because they did not understand the meaning of His death.
Again in this passage we see they do not ask Him and they do not understand, but the reason of fear seems to be missing. We do not know if they were afraid to ask again simply because Luke (and Matthew and Mark) do not tell us, but it is interesting to note that they now hesitate to ask after simply being told this on three separate occasions.
What the Messiah is supposed to do
Why might the disciples have been confused by this declaration Jesus made over and over? Much of it came with the expectations of what the Messiah would do. If you were to look up a list of Messianic prophecies today, you might find many that make this statement obvious. Isaiah 53 is indeed one of the most famous, sounding so incredibly on the nose that you might easily mistake it for being a New Testament chapter.
But most of what the Jews of Jesus’ day were looking forward to aligned with the notion of a conquering king. Even the name “Messiah”, meaning “anointed”, is simply a designation for a king. David was anointed by Samuel as king, and in the course of David’s rule, he was given a promise through the prophet Nathan. This promise is known as the Davidic Covenant, and it promises a descendant of David would be King over Israel forever (2 Samuel 7:11-17). Then later, the prophet Isaiah declares this Messiah would judge the earth, raising up the afflicted and killing the wicked (Isaiah 11:4).
This section of Isaiah was so strongly hoped in, in fact, that many during Jesus’ day believed that if the Messiah were to come during their lives, He would destroy the Romans and restore full sovereignty to Israel.
The most horrible thing
And so you can see that to the ears of those expecting a conquering king and judge over the earth, the prophecy that He would be handed over to evil men and killed is quite alarming. It might even be considered disqualifying to some who would hear it. How could it be that the mighty Messiah who would bring desolation to Israels enemies could Himself be killed by those enemies? It makes no sense.
Well, it makes no sense unless you understand God’s purposes in all of this. The prophecies of the Messiah being a conqueror are only part of it, as we saw above. There are prophecies of Him being a servant, a reconciler, and the One who suffers on our behalf (Isaiah 53:4-12). And lest anyone think He did not conquer Israel’s enemies, He put the rulers and authorities to open shame (Colossians 2:15) – the very ones we war against (Ephesians 6:12). And that victory Christ won was only made possible by the cross. It was only by entering into death that He would defeat death (Revelation 20:14). By this, He secured eternal life for all who believe.
And so we now see a bit of what the disciples missed: that this most horrible thing ever to occur on the earth, the murder of the Son of God, by God’s wisdom became the most wondrous of deeds.
May the Lord bless you and conform you into the image of His Son.
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