Luke 13:15 Commentary and Bible Study

The wickedness and callousness of this instruction to the people is made clear by the severity of the answer he receives from the Lord. Christ is not afraid to publicly rebuke this man, and that is what he deserves, and the only right way to deal with him when he has made this public declaration which so misdirects the people. ‘Thou hypocrite.’ It is a stinging rebuke, a personal rebuke, a rebuke which publicly shames the man and his fellow officials. The Lord’s condemnation of these men is making the point that they were being utterly inconsistent. Furthermore, their conduct in other areas of their lives showed that they knew what was the right thing to do. Christ is not commending them for at least getting one thing right; he is rebuking them for being selective in their acts of mercy. The truth is that they have said this out of prejudice against him and his ministry. The people are corrected only as a way of getting at him. He has shown the sort of mercy that they themselves show on other occasions, but because they hate him so much, they refuse to credit him with anything, let alone marvel at the healing miracle. They could not fail to see the divine power that was at work in a miracle which they were quite incapable of reproducing. They could only react in this way by extreme hardness of heart.