Luke 14:26 Commentary and Bible Study

These are strange words, and they shock, and of course they are meant to shock. Whatever can he mean? Well, it becomes clear what he means. A slightly softer form of the same teaching is found delivered on another occasion in Matthew 11:37, where Christ says, ‘He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.’ That is certainly the idea behind what is found in Luke. It is not an exhortation to hatred, but an exhortation to love Christ more, and God more, and above any other love that might conflict with the love of God. There is a great warfare involved here. There is God and there is man, and the two are against each other. The gospel obliges is to take God’s side, and though we wish that all would be on God’s side, that is not always the case. People are going to turn against you. There are going to be great difficulties. You've got to be absolutely sure when you come to me, says the Lord, that you really want me and are going to love me more than anything else, because otherwise you have missed the point.The words are meant to rivet our attention on the instruction of Christ. There were people who would follow Christ for the wrong reasons. They didn't understand his call to repentance, to conversion to God. They thought that he would benefit them in their present earthly life, that he would give them material riches and healing and wonderful things in this life. They didn't understand, and many of them didn't want to understand, that he came to bring spiritual blessings, reconciliation with God, to bring people to heaven and eternity. He didn’t come just to make material life somewhat better than it might otherwise have been. And there was tremendous prejudice against Christ. We have to remember these words are spoken in the context of a highly religious Jewish society from long ago. People followed their parents and their family ties, and their small holding, and their trades. Although you had human rebellion within families, by and large they did what was required of them, and they did as they were told. What Christ means is that in order to come to him, you have to break with the old life and the old values, the unbelieving values and the self-serving values. You have to repent of sin, and you have to allow the Lord to change you and give you a new life, new loyalties, and new objectives – a spiritual view of life. That will often set you at odds with the people who were previously your relations and friends. Hopefully not always, but if there is a clash, and if there is a collision, the new life comes first. So you cannot come to Christ, he is telling them, and continue to be a complacent, nominal worshipper of God, which is what so many were in the lapsed Jewish church of those days. Many were interested in Christ only because he healed, because he spoke so marvellous and fascinating sermons and discourses, so they followed him half-heartedly. You couldn't do that. You had to go all the way. You had to break with the old life and its loyalties. Hopefully your mother and your father and your brother and your sister, will find Christ also and be saved, and you can love them all the more. Even if not, then naturally you will go on loving them to a degree as relatives, but no longer will all the things that belong to the old life come first. The love of Christ will be the most important influence. That is bound to be so, because if you know him, he has saved you for all eternity. He has given you redemption, heaven and glory, and reconciliation with God. That's the meaning. So the first verse here is about new family, really. ‘If any man come to me’, means he now has new family, the family of God. There is a changed life here. You have got to go all the way and allow God to convert you. Following that great change, Christ is everything to you, and you have a new objective. So Christ begins with this warning. He doesn’t call people to come to him as lightweight believers, shallow believers, nominal believers. He wants people to know that the Christian life was a profound thing, a completly new direction.