While we are probably more familiar with Matthew’s or Mark’s accounts of this occasion, Luke’s account is fuller and offers more detail of Jesus counterargument.

Jesus offers a two-part counter to the Sadducees argument. 1) the first is to say that there is something different between this life and the next, namely no new marriages are being formed.  Jesus goes on to explain this point in a way that might seem strange to us. The reason no new marriages are taking place Is because there is no more death. In order to understand the connection between death and marriage we have to understand something of how the Sadducees thought. In their view, death was overcome, not by a continued existence after this life but by building a progeny/lineage to carry on your name. Hence their appeal to the law of Levarite marriage and the absurd story they construct. Jesus says because there is no more death, there is likewise no need to marry and reproduce, and thus their entire perspective falls short. Further, Jesus grounds His assertion of the difference between this age (one where death rules) and the next age (one where death is no more) in the new nature of our resurrected state, we will be like the angels. (2 important things to note here: 1) we become like the angels in a way but that is not the same as saying we become angels when we die 2) the particular point of comparison Jesus draws between us and angels here is that we will no longer be subject to death as sons of God). We like the angels, will belong to and become like our Father who is the essence of life itself. What matters is not who our earthly parents were but who our Heavenly Father is and because we belong to Him we are children of the resurrection. In summary, there will be no need for marriage, because there will be no more death and thus need for reproduction, because like the angels we will be sons of God and partakers of life.

In the second part of Jesus’ counter-argument Jesus appeals to Scripture the Sadducees would have accepted (it is thought that they Sadducees would have only held Genesis-Deuteronomy aka the Torah/Pentateuch to be inspired. In this He forces them to wrestle with the text rather than to dismiss it offhand as unauthoritative. The story of the burning bush demonstrates 1) that the patriarchs(Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) though having physically died, were still alive in some sense and 2) that God was still their God and was fulfilling His promises to them by delivering the people out Egypt. If the patriarchs were dead as the Sadducees thought, God’s promises would have been limited to the duration of their lifetime. In this Jesus undermines the Sadducees' perception of this life, the afterlife, and their interpretation of Scripture. “They no longer dared to ask him any question.”

The pressing question we often want to know is, “what happens to our earthly relationships?” This text may have something to say about those. 1) I am not at all dogmatic about this point but here is something to chew on. It is often argued, typically from the shortened forms is Matthew or Mark, that we will be like angels, angels don’t marry, therefore marriage will cease. To add a slight nuance - as noted above, the fuller explanation Luke gives us connects our being like angels to being sons of God and thus not dying. It should also be kept in mind that Jesus’ counterargument in context is not against marriage itself but against the function of marriage to produce offspring. Thus, while we typically assume this text says that the marriage relationship will be dissolved, it actually only asserts that no new marriages will take place. Now we might extrapolate from this that marriage itself will be unnecessary and thus done away with but this an assumption, possibly a valid one, but an assumption none the less. The upshot of all of this would be that our relationships, as we experience them now, remain intact in the life to come. 2) Regardless of where one falls on the first point, the second point still stands and of this I can be much more certain: eternity will be better. When we think about our future in the New Heavens and the New Earth, we must keep in mind that it is great gain. If the marriage relationship is dissolved, as good as it may be on this earth, it is because God is giving us something better. We will live in a state, in the presence of God who is love, with no sin and no selfishness. Thus, all relationships, in whatever form they take, will be improved and transformed. We are not losing we are gaining.  In reference to earthly bodies, of which the recreation of the world to come is analogous (Rom. 8:22-23), Paul employs the metaphor of a seed becoming a plant (1 Cor. 15:36-49). There are levels of continuity and discontinuity between the seed and the plant. The plant comes from the seed and is an extension of it and yet in the process the seed is destroyed in order to create something better. Nobody, once the rich, luscious, and productive plant is brought to fruition longs for the seed anymore. It has served its purpose. It was destined to become a plant. This is the case with our earthly bodies which will be transformed to glory and immortality, it will be the same with the New Heavens and the New Earth (Rom. 8:22-23, Rev. 21-22), and I imagine it will be the same way with our present relationships in whatever form they take. The good gives way to the grand in the presence of God for eternity.

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After having been challenged by the Jewish leadership (chief priests, elders, scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees) Jesus then turns and posses a question of His own about their understanding of the Messiah/Christ (the specific group Jesus is challenging is probably the scribes cf. Lk. 20:39, 45-47). Interestingly He leaves His question unanswered for His original hearers to ponder or perhaps better, for the question to probe the hearers. The scribes might have agreed with Jesus when it came to the resurrection (Lk. 20:39) but their categories of who the Messiah would be and what he would do needed serious tweaking. The question concerns the subject of lineage once again, and the belief that the Messiah was to be a descendant of David. We first encounter this in 2 Sam. 7:12-14, where God promises that He would establish David’s rule forever through His progeny. But Psalm 110, from which Jesus quotes, provides an interesting wrinkle. There, in a text that the Jews commonly associated with the Messiah, David prophetically calls the Messiah his Lord. He says, the LORD (when in small caps in our Old Testament this is inserted for the personal name of God, “YHWH” in most of our English translations) said to my Lord (“Adoni” the typical word for “master” in Hebrew). It was a typical convention for a son to bless and honor his father by calling him Lord, but the reverse was not done. Herein is the puzzle, the Messiah would be a descendant of David but would be at the same time greater than David. This is the point the religious leaders need to understand, the Messiah would indeed be Davidic, but the ultimate category for understanding him was not merely as the son of David but as someone greater than David. The fact that Jesus quotes this text about the greater than David Messiah being given victory over his enemies should not be overlooked in a context in which Jesus is at odds with those who oppose Him and would soon be enthroned over them and all His enemies through His death and resurrection.

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Jesus finally turns to their crowds as he publicly rebukes the scribes for their pretense of piety and their religious hypocrisy. A large part of the reason they, and many of the other religious leaders rejected Jesus as the Messiah was that they were most concerned about their prestige and prosperity.

Luke 18:31-43

Having traveled with His disciples toward Jerusalem since Lk. 9:51, Jesus was finally nearing the city. The place where He would be treacherously tried and condemned to crucifixion. It was the place where many of God’s prophets met their end as the people rebelled against God, and it would be the place of their rejection of God’s Son (Lk. 13:33-35). Why was Jesus so resolute to make such a trip if He knew what would happen (Lk. 9:51, 53; 13:22)? Why not stay in Galilee and continue to have a successful preaching and healing ministry? It is because He came for something much greater, something that is at the same time awe-inspiring and awful. For something splendorous and somber. Beautiful and bloody.

He came to deal ultimately with sin and death and defeat the one who had the power over those things and so doing give liberty to the captives (Lk. 11:14-23; 13:10-17). That was the reality to which His teaching and His miracles pointed. That is why He must go (Lk. 13:33). As Jesus tried to explain this to His disciples a third and final time, it fell on deaf ears as it had before. Maybe they assumed Jesus was speaking in riddles again? Maybe they had that selective hearing impairment many of us husbands have when our wives ask us to do something? Maybe (probably) they had their minds made up about who the Messiah would be, what He would do, and how He would do it, that anything contrary either got disregarded or reinterpreted (cue dangers of living in an echo chamber rant). For whatever reason, they didn’t get it. Luke makes this quite explicit, he says it three times! “1) They understood none of these things 2) the saying was hidden to them and 3) they did not grasp what he said” (Lk. 18:34).

The next scene Luke records is a story about Jesus coming near to Jericho, His penultimate destination before arriving in Jerusalem (Lk. 18:35-43). As he draws near, a blind man sits beside the road begging. Hearing the great commotion the blind man asks what is going. He Is told that Jesus of Nazareth is here. The blind beggar had heard of this man. At this point, who hadn’t. He was the backwoods son of a carpenter turned miracle worker and itinerate preacher of extraordinary things. He had done things no one had ever seen before. At once the blind man anxiously begins to cry out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” The people around him rebuked him and told him to be quiet, much in the same way the disciples treated the people bringing children to Jesus just a few verses earlier (v. 15). Didn’t this man know that Jesus had more important things to do than to worry about his plight? He was probably a sinner who deserved it anyways they would’ve likely thought to themselves. And yet he cried out all the more. Hearing his cry, Jesus called the man to Himself. “What do you want me to do for you?” He asked. The blind man responded, not by sheepishly begging for some spare change, or asking for a morsel of bread as he had been asking before, but instead boldly implores Jesus to allow him to recover his sight. Though the blind man, who for the record could not see, had to be told what was going on he immediately understood something of the significance of Jesus’ presence. Though blind he had a clearer vision than the crowds, not only because he recognized Jesus as the “Son of David” (the only person thus far in Luke’s Gospel to do so) but also because he knew the significance of those things. He knew that Jesus came to exalt the humble (v. 14) and set at liberty the captives. The blind man saw what the crowds could not. He begins following Jesus, based on what He knew about Jesus at this point. Jesus declares, “your faith has made you well.”

Immediately, the contrast with the disciples becomes clear. They were the ones who did not understand or grasp the things still hidden to them, while this man regains his vision and recognizes Jesus. All of this anticipates, however, a time when the eyes and minds of Jesus’ disciples would be opened to see Him clearly, to recognize His significance, and to understand His purpose (Lk. 24:16, 31; 44-48). May we ask not only that the Lord provides for our daily needs both big and small (though we should certainly ask for these as well) but may we also ask that He allows us to recover our sight, grants us to see Him clearer, and know Him deeper. And as our vision is made more whole let us, like the formerly blind beggar, rise and begin to follow Him. Lord open our eyes!

Luke 17:20-37 is... apocalyptic. That is true literally (the word apokalypto is used in v. 30) and it is true literarily (it shares features of a genre of literature bearing the same name) and it is quite possibly true in the popular sense of the term as well (that being that apocalypse refers to the end of the world). All of these uses are of course related. Let’s explore. So the word apokalypto means “to reveal” and when used of God, it often carries with it sudden demonstrations of His power and might exercised in this world. Apocalyptic literature was a type of writing that centered around God’s sudden in-breaking into the world, to turn it upside down (or right side up if you’re on God’s side of things). In this literature, God’s people are pictured as being in bondage/oppression until they are liberated and their enemies are defeated at God’s revealing. When God did this, it was pictured as the end of one age and the beginning of a new age, and thus upheaval is pictured on a cosmic scale with fantastical imagery. Finally, the popular notion of apocalyptic is the idea the God is going to destroy the world and deliver His people once and for all. All of these are grossly simplified but serve our purposes well enough. 

In Luke 17, Jesus is talking about the kingdom of God (as we have noted several times over this is often best understood in the dynamic sense of reigning or exercising dominion). The religious leaders want to know when it is coming and Jesus reveals two truths about the kingdom, it doesn’t come in the observable ways they were expecting with the pyrotechnics, clashing of symbols, and a Jewish king taking the Roman Caesar by the ear like a bothered grandmother at a family reunion. In fact, it was already among them in nascent form, but the religious leaders, by and large, missed it. This is the second thing Jesus reveals about the kingdom here. It had already been inaugurated in the incarnation of Jesus, as God came into this world, albeit in a backwards, backwoods son of a carpenter from Nazareth sort of way. (That this is the likely interpretation of Jesus’ saying here rather than the alternative interpretation that “the kingdom is within you - as in, within your hearts” is probable for three reasons 1) Jesus has already claimed that the kingdom was here in His own person as He cast out demons 2) while it is true God reigns in our hearts, nowhere else is the kingdom spoken of in this way 3) Jesus is addressing the Pharisees who were interrogating him, the one group of people whose hearts by in large the kingdom was not in). So the kingdom was here, just in an unexpected, less than ultimate way.

But then the language changes. Jesus begins talking about something that would happen in the future (at least future from His standpoint, though possible from ours as well, keep reading), and He uses apocalyptic language to do so.

Three contexts are necessary:

The Day of the Lord

When we think of the day of the Lord, we tend to think singularly of the ultimate and final day when God’s might would be revealed, all His enemies judged and His people delivered to live with Him in eternal bliss. We associate this day with things like the “Second Coming” of Jesus with all of the notions of the apocalyptic mentioned above. To be sure, the Bible speaks of such a day but before we get there we must take a step back.

The Day of the Lord was not just one day. In fact, there have been multiple Days of the Lord which have already happened. There are way too many passages to reference here concerning these days but consider a few from the book of Jeremiah: Jer. 46:10 speaks about the Day of the Lord against Egypt, Jer 49:22 is foretelling of the coming day against Edom, and so with Assyria Jer 49:26, Moab Jer. 48:41, Philistia Jer. 47:4; and Babylon Jer 50:27, 30, 31; 51:2. These are references to the destruction of various nations, which occurred in history. Other Day of Lord texts group multiple, sometimes all, nations together in judgment (Isa. 24:21; Jer. 25:30-33; Ezek. 30:2-5; Joel 3:11-14; Obad. 15-16; Zech 12:3–9; 14:12–13; Ezek 38:17–39:8). Many of these texts describe this Day, or these Days as “near” Ezek. 30:2-5, Obad. 15-16; Isa. 13:6-13.

However, the Biblical authors do not reserve these days just to refer to judgment against foreign nations. Notably, the Day of the Lord was coming against God’s people. Thus, Amos warns God’s people, many of which who were hastening the Day to come, that it wouldn’t be what they expected Amos 5:18-20. Again there are way too many texts to treat here but consider God’s judgment against Israel (Amos 2:13-16; 3:9-11) and Judah (Joel 1:15; 2:1-17; Zech. 1:4-18; 2:2-3). Many of these texts use apocalyptic imagery of cosmic upheaval like the shaking of the heavens and fail of stars and which is accompanied by fires, wars, and darkness.

All of this contributes to our understanding that The Day of the Lord, is often a day of God’s judgment (though see the parenthetical comment at the end), that often times, does not refer to one single event at the end of history, but has referred to multiple events throughout history. Applying this to the Luke 17, we are prepared for the possibility that the “day/days of the Son of Man” might refer to the end of everything but also for the equally plausible possibility that something less than the final end is in view.

The Son of Man

The next relevant context is the Son of Man language. Generally, this phrase was just an expression to refer to a human being (cf. Num. 23:19; Job 25:6; Psa. 8:4). However, this took on a Messianic connotation in the book of Daniel and referred to the one “like a son of Man” that God would raise up and establish as king over His people. This king would destroy the wicked nations who oppressed the people of God (see Dan. 7:1-28; esp. vv. 13-14). Jesus uses this term often to refer to Himself. Notably, in Lk. 21; Matthew 24; and Mark 13 the Son of Man is pictured as coming in judgment against Jerusalem, the city that rejected Jesus and would go on to be a major source of oppression against God’s people in the book of Acts.

Luke’s Gospel

This brings us to our final context, Luke’s Gospel itself. By the time we get to Lk. 17 Jesus has been traveling toward Jerusalem (Lk. 9:51-53) where he would face rejection and death (Lk. 9:21-22, 43-44). Significantly, as Jesus makes his way toward Jerusalem laments over its rejection of Him, which would result in their house (likely a reference to the temple) being left desolate (Lk. 13:31-35). Similarly, He will weep over it as He enters the city because they would reject him and Jerusalem would be destroyed (Lk. 19:41-44).

So taking all of this together, the Day of the Son of Man must be referring to the destruction of Jerusalem, right? Well… maybe. Indeed, Lk. 17:25 foretells Jesus’ rejection by the current generation. And the language of not entering the house or not turning back for one’s possessions and is repeated from Mt. 24:17, 18 and Mk. 13:15, 16 which in those contexts clearly refer to the destruction of Jerusalem (note it would happen in that generation Mt. 24:34; Mk. 13:30). And there may even be some tacit symbol for Rome invading Jerusalem when the “vultures”, also the word for eagles (the ancients thought of vultures as a type of eagle) which was a well-known icon of Rome, gathered at the corpse. And yet, Jesus’ teaching here has a level of ambiguity not found in Mt. 24 or Mk. 13. Jerusalem is not specified in this context. Also, if this is a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem, why would Jesus repeat Himself in Lk. 21? We must keep in mind the context here. It begins with a question from the Pharisees about “when” all of this would happen. Jesus’ answer is that it is the wrong question. He responds, now to His disciples, who also needed to hear this message saying, it would appear suddenly, like lightening (Lk. 17:24). If their approach was, “I will wait for a sign of the kingdom to come before I get my priorities right,” they had the wrong approach. They needed to be ready now. They should not be so tied to the things of this life that they were unprepared (Lk. 17:26-33), when God broke suddenly, powerfully, and apocalyptically into this world to destroy Jerusalem. So while I do believe this refers primarily to events that transpired in 70 AD, the openness and ambiguity of this passage is intentional and instructive for us. Ultimately, this Day of the Lord, like so many before it, points forward to the final Day of Lord in which God’s enemies will be destroyed, His people delivered and the present heavens and earth are first destroyed and then renewed 1 Thess. 5:1-11; 2 Pet. 3:8-13; Rev. 20:11-21:1ff). Therefore, let us stay ready, loosen our grasp on the things of this world, and encourage each other for the final Day of the Lord that will come like a thief in the night. Thanks be to God that we are not of the night for that day to surprise us.

(While it is a bit beyond the bounds of our present discussion the is another reference to the Day of the Lord of great significance. Joel 2:17-27 begins to shift from the Day of the Lord’s wrath against Judah to a day of His mercy toward His people also described as a Day of the Lord (Joel 2:28-32). Notably, Peter takes this text and applies it to the events of Acts 2. Thus, when the Spirit was poured out on mankind and the message of deliverance preached, God was breaking powerfully into the world, turning it upside down, and delivering His people. It was properly a Day of the Lord.)

(Just for reference Rev. 2:5, 16; 3:3 also picture Jesus coming in judgment against particular churches, thus any discussion about “The Second Coming of Jesus” probably needs to be more nuanced. Jesus “comes” many times before His “Second Coming”.)