Luke 12:50 Commentary and Bible Study

He then expands on what he must experience. This verse uses another figure of speech to refer to Calvary. It is like a baptism, an experience in which he would be totally immersed, an experience which is beyond our understanding. It is a baptism of suffering, and he knows perfectly well that it is coming. The cross of Calvary will bring unimaginable suffering to the Lord Jesus, that suffering necessary to pay the price for the redemption of all the elect. Not until then will the fire be kindled, because not until then will Christ have finished the work which will establish his church. It is only with the establishment of the church that the full extent of the division between saved and unsaved will be made clear. Under the Old Testament order, Israel existed as a mixed multitude of believers and unbelievers, and God was content that they should live together and worship together, even though some did not really know him. But under the New Covenant the church is called out from the world, and something happens which did not happen in Old Testament Israel. The distinction between believer is brought out into the open, and divides even family units.But the Lord was constantly aware as he speaks, of the terrible nature of the atonement that is coming in the near future. He lived with the burden of having to go through with that suffering in order to complete the work given him by the Father, the hardest work that has ever been accomplished and will ever be accomplished. This was why he had come into the world, and nothing was going to prevent him completing that work. The Lord had taught his disciples, ‘Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof’ (Matthew 6:34), and he live by this precept himself. But that did not stop him knowing what lay ahead, and as events came to their conclusion, the horror of what he had to go through reached a climax in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was a foretaste of the full suffering of the cross, and the separation from the Father that he must experience in order to take the eternal punishment of all his people. How could he live day by day, knowing that this experience lay ahead of him? He answers with these words: ‘How am I straightened till it be accomplished!’ The anticipation of that terrible suffering must not be allowed to deter him from carrying out the Father’s will. He did not flinch for a moment from the terrible task assigned to him. The Greek word translated ‘straightened’ means literally ‘held together’. Today, we would say ‘constrained’ or ‘hard pressed’. He had to deal with the reality of what lay ahead, just as anyone would need to take strict control of their feelings and reactions in order to go through with some very difficult assignment. The instinct for self-preservation and avoidance of suffering naturally makes one shrink from the task. The inner man therefore has to be steeled against the difficulty of what lies ahead. But Christ had suffering to endure which was unlike any other suffering ever experienced. He had to suffer the combined punishment due to all his people for all eternity. He lived with this, and he longed for the day when Calvary would be behind him, and all the fruit that resulted from it would be apparent. We are given a glimpse into the inner workings of his heart.At the same time, these words point to the tremendous victory and sense of gain he would feel after Calvary was accomplished. It was for the joy set before him that he endured the cross. That joy would more than make up for what he had suffered. What would come with it would be calling out of his people from the world into an identifiable unit, separate from the nation, separate from the tribe, separate from the family. All those social units would be divided into those within them that love Christ and know him, and those that do not.