Luke 13:26 Commentary and Bible Study

But the desperate conversation continues. Though these word have their primary application to the Jews of Christ’s day, who were alive at the time of the incarnation, there is an application to all. Those who are outside know what is at stake now. We seem to be transported into the future and taken to the very Day of Judgment. Certainly Christ speaks of that day in the passage in Matthew 7:22-23. He tells us that those who have arrived at that day unsaved will not give up their pleadings easily, because they are about to lose everything. ‘Perhaps the master of the house can be persuaded to change his mind and let us in’, they think. After all, they have previously been told just to come and ask, and seek, and knock, and the promise was given that the door would be opened. Yes, but times have changed, and there was always a warning that the door would not be opened forever. The master of the house is one who is very different to those they are used to dealing with. He is not one who says ‘yea and nay’, yes and no. They have never dealt with one whose word is so unalterable, so final. He knows who belongs to him and who will come to him, and he knows the fate of those who will not come, and his heart is hardened against them forever. When he shuts the door, he knows who is still outside, and his shutting the door marks his intention that they will never come in. But he warned us in advance, and that warning takes away all excuse. Yet, they will not give up. ‘We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets.’ ‘Surely you can say that you knew us. We related to you at a certain level when you were in the world, when you born of a woman and grew up in a carpenter’s household. You did know us and we knew you, for we walked on the same streets as you, and we ate and drank in your presence, and partook of the ordinary affairs of life with you. We knew you and you surely knew us.’ But that is not the sort of knowledge that Christ is talking about. To know him as a mere man is not to know him at all. To fellowship with him and yet to fail to know that he is the incarnate Son of God who has come to be the Saviour of sinners, and that we must trust in him for salvation; to know none of these things is to remain outside of his kingdom. This argument is not going to change his mind. Indeed, it just reinforces the fact that they never knew him in a spiritual way.