Life and belief are urgent.  That’s the quick message of this passage.  For the second time in this chapter (see also 13:1-9), Jesus stresses that the time for belief is right now.  Other questions about salvation and who will be saved and how many and where they’re from or whether certain people will get in are secondary to personal belief.  ‘Do you believe?’ is the most important question anyone can answer.  And the question is urgent because the time for belief is limited.  No one has forever.  And the ramifications of unbelief are eternal.  There are those who think they’ll be saved but will instead be damned because they never personally worked through their own belief.  And many of those same people believe salvation is based on something other than belief and will find after it’s too late that they’re tragically wrong.  Before anyone worries about the global impact of salvation and the people affected, he must make sure that he himself is saved.

22-30
Jesus continues His journey to Jerusalem.  He doesn’t appear to be in any hurry as He passes through from one city and village to another, teaching as He goes.  At one of these places, someone asks Him if there are only a few that will be saved.  Why he asks this isn’t entirely clear.  Luke gives us no context for the question.  It seems at first to be somewhat out of the blue.  And to understand the question we need to confirm what he means by saved.

Based on how Jesus answers him, it’s safe to assume the man’s understanding of saved is essentially the same as ours – referring to those who are accepted into the Messianic kingdom.  It’s hard to know how much understanding the people listening to Jesus have about eternity (since the Old Testament don’t address it all that much), but they apparently understand that there is a final reckoning.  There’s a judgment day coming and some will get in and some won’t.

As to what makes him ask if only a few will be saved, it could relate to one of two things.  First, there is a debate among Jewish religious leaders as to whether all Jews will be saved or if perhaps some Jews who are especially evil might be left out.  In this light, the man might ask the question to find out where Jesus stands in this debate.  The other possibility might be that Jesus’ own teaching about the small and humble beginnings of the kingdom of God in verses 18-21 prompts the question.  If the kingdom begins small, does that mean that only a few will be saved?

Ultimately, the reasons behind the question really don’t matter because Jesus ignores the question altogether.  He doesn’t answer it and instead drills down to what He knows is the much more important issue – belief.  He answers the man, “Strive to enter through the narrow door.  For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”  What matters isn’t how many; what matters is will YOU be saved?

Three words really stick out in Jesus’ response.  The narrow door shows that the way of salvation isn’t open to all belief systems.  Man doesn’t get to choose how he comes to God (all religions and faiths are NOT equal).  There is only one way to salvation and it’s through Jesus (Jn 14:6).  Belief in Christ isn’t A way to God; it’s THE way to God.

The second word to notice is many.  This is the closest that Jesus gets to answering the man’s question.  There will be many who want to enter but won’t be able to because by the time they try, the door will be shut.  Notice that this is a picture of the next life.  No one gets rejected in this life if they sincerely seek to enter.  It’s in the next life that people will find to their horror that they can’t get in.  While this could mean that these are people who realize in the next life the truth of what they rejected in this life and so desperately try to get in, what it seems to mean instead – based on what Jesus says in the following verses – is they assume they have the right to get in and are shocked to find out they can’t.  And this will happen to MANY people.

To make sure this isn’t their fate, the people listening to Jesus must strive to enter by the narrow door.  This doesn’t mean they need to work their way to heaven.  It means they must make every effort, leave no stone unturned, urgently make sure they believe now.  The time of belief is now and there’s no time to waste.  STRIVE to enter NOW.  Belief is urgent.

In verses 25-27, Jesus elaborates on those who will be surprised to find the door is closed to them.  They are those who reject Jesus in this life but assume that since they’re children of Abraham, they’ll be let in.  What they’ll find instead is that it’s Jesus Himself who will shut the door and refuse to open even after they knock.  They’ll knock and argue that they have the credentials to come in (not only are they Abraham’s children, the Messiah Himself lived among them and they heard Him speak and He ate with them), and Jesus will tell them He doesn’t recognize them as members of the household (“I do not know where you came from”).  This is what the shock will be; that though they are Abraham’s offspring, the Messiah won’t recognize them.

What Jesus will say to them ultimately is, “Depart from Me, all you evildoers.”  This is a quote from Psalm 6.  In that Psalm, David mourns over his treatment by his enemies but says at the end, “All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly dismayed; they shall turn back, they shall suddenly be ashamed” (Ps 6:10).  Just as in the Psalm, Jesus is rejected by many in this world, but He will judge them in the next.  His enemies will be ashamed and greatly dismayed when they see their Judge is the One they rejected.

That He calls them evildoers is revealing.  These aren’t people who live lives of faithfulness only to find that it was all in vain in the end.  These are people whose private lives show them to be faithless.  They claim to be followers of God, but their lives show something much different.  By their actions they show their lack of belief.  Even so, their actions don’t stop them from assuming they’re in because of their credentials.

The people who are shut out will be overcome with grief (weeping) and anger (gnashing of teeth) when they see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the prophets (who they rejected as messengers of God just like they reject Jesus) in the kingdom of God that they can’t enter.  What an amazing truth this is.  To say that the patriarchs these people proudly descend from will be in the kingdom, but the people themselves won’t be, is to take aim at their fundamental identity.  With these words, Jesus essentially tells them they aren’t the people of God.

[As an aside, it’s interesting that there will be anger at judgment, isn’t it?  That means that even when people see the righteous Judge on the throne and realize the truth of everything they’ve thought to be false and realize that there IS indeed a God and a Redeemer who came to earth, that even then they’ll STILL feel they’re being judged unfairly.  Perhaps this is the wrong way to interpret this, and the anger will be targeted at others or even themselves, but since Jesus includes it here with weeping it seems to imply that there will be those who are crushed with sorrow and others who will be shaking their fist at God to the very end.] 

Jesus isn’t satisfied with just questioning their identity.  He goes on to tell them that people from all over the world will be in the kingdom.  He clearly means that there will be gentiles who believe and get in while Jews who don’t believe will be cast out.  He says it another way by saying that some who are last (gentiles) will be first, and some who are first (Jews) will be last (in other texts, the first and last metaphor seems to refer to those who are privileged in this life compared to the underprivileged and how those positions will be turned upside down in the next life; here it seems to make more sense to refer to Jews and gentiles).  The Jews were given the Law and are God’s chosen people and God sent the Messiah to them – that’s why they’re first.  But they reject the Messiah and thus forfeit their place as God’s people.  And the gentiles who believe, though they’re behind the Jews now because they don’t have the Law and the Messiah, will take their place in a kingdom that rewards belief.  The kingdom is no respecter of persons or genealogy.  For those who don’t believe, they’ll be cast out into a place of weeping and gnashing teeth.

Notice throughout this monologue that Jesus addresses His words to ‘you’.  He makes this very personal.  Unless His listeners (or readers) believe, this is their fate.  It’s not a matter of trying to figure out who or how many will be saved.  What’s important is for YOU to believe and to believe NOW.

31-35
Luke includes a story in these verses that may or may not occur around the same time as the teaching in the preceding verses, but it’s here because it illustrates a similar point.  Jesus responds to His adversaries by again stressing the importance of belief.

In a somewhat hard-to-understand scene, some Pharisees come to Jesus and tell Him that He needs to get away from wherever they are because Herod wants to kill Him.  We know nothing more about this other than what Luke records here.  We don’t know the motives of the Pharisees – are they genuinely concerned for Jesus or is this a ruse to get Him to leave?  Are they perhaps in league with Herod and want to scare Jesus into submission?  Do they want to use the threat to silence Jesus?  There’s no way to know but it is perhaps revealing that Jesus gives them a message to take back to Herod.  This could mean that He knows the Pharisees approach Him with ulterior motives that aren’t friendly.

The Herod they refer to is Herod Antipas, one of three sons of Herod the Great (the king the wise men appeared to and the one who had all the babies in Bethlehem killed).  Antipas is ruler over Galilee.  Antipas took his brother Philip’s wife (Herodias – who decided she wanted to be with the more powerful brother and so left her husband who was by far the least important of the three sons of Herod the Great – note her name – she was born into the extended family of Herod and is the niece of both men she married), watched her daughter do a provocative dance, and then gave her daughter the head of John the Baptist on a platter (Matt 14:1-12).  [It’s easy in the New Testament to get confused about who Herod is because the writers rarely identify which Herod they refer to; the reader can be excused for thinking Herod is essentially immortal and omnipresent since he appears in all kinds of places and never seems to die.]

That Antipas has already killed John the Baptist would seemingly make this threat one not to ignore, but that’s exactly what Jesus does.  He tells the Pharisees to go and tell Herod that He’s going to continue His ministry, and He’ll leave the area only after He’s completed His work.  In His reply to the Pharisees, He calls Herod a fox.  We’d expect this to mean that Herod is crafty and sly (or, if this were the 1970s, a good-looking woman), but what He likely means is Herod is insignificant.  What Herod wants is meaningless to Jesus because He’s on God’s time.  When God the Father decides it’s time for Jesus to die, He’ll die.  Until that day, Jesus will continue casting out demons and performing cures.  And Herod’s threats will have no bearing on that timing at all.

It’s interesting that twice in these verses Jesus uses a metaphor for time that involves three days.  He says He’ll do his miracles today and tomorrow, and on the third day He’ll finish.  Then He says He’ll travel for today and tomorrow and the next day to make sure He reaches Jerusalem.  It could be that the three days refer to His time in the grave.  It also could be that He simply means there is a time allotted for the remainder of His ministry, and all that time will occur.  That He says specifically that on the third day He’ll finish His course may lend credence to the first explanation.

Jesus is completely dismissive of Herod in this scene.  He’s not even remotely worried or intimidated by Herod’s power to cause Him trouble.  This won’t be the last time Jesus responds to Herod this way.  Jesus will finally meet Herod Antipas in Jerusalem when Pilate sends Jesus to him during Jesus’ show-trial leading up to His crucifixion.  Even then, Jesus won’t give him the time of day.  Herod will question Him and Jesus won’t respond at all.  By His actions and words (or lack of words), Jesus shows that Antipas is beyond salvation and beyond any hope of rehabilitation at all.

When Jesus finishes talking about Herod, He turns His attention to Jerusalem (where He just said He’s going to spend the next three days journeying to).  He says He must go to Jerusalem because that’s where prophets are killed.  This statement is hard to understand.  It could facetious; in which case it means, “I wouldn’t want to die outside Jerusalem because everyone knows that’s where real prophets are killed.”  It also may simply be acknowledging that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and its most important city (both commercially and religiously), and if He’s going to be killed He needs to be killed in the religious capital of the country.

Regardless of which is correct, He goes on to mourn Jerusalem.  He says Jerusalem is the place that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her.  That Jerusalem stones the messengers of God shows how corrupt the city is.  Stoning is the punishment for blasphemy.  Jerusalem has historically been so far from God that it’s determined God’s messengers and their messages were blasphemous against the very God who sent them.

Even with its history, Jesus longs to gather and watch over its people like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.  Jerusalem wants nothing to do with Him, however, and so it will soon be desolate.  Jesus likely refers to what will happen roughly 40 years in the future when Rome destroys Jerusalem in 70 AD.  Thus, Jerusalem won’t see Jesus again until it’s ready to welcome Him with the words, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” (a quote from Ps 118:26) at His second coming.

Jesus will say words very similar to this when He finally enters Jerusalem.  When He approaches the city He’ll say, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.  For the days shall come upon you when your enemies will throw up a bank before you, and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation” (Lk 19:41-44).  Notice the reason for the city’s destruction – because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.  Jerusalem will be destroyed because of its rejection of the Messiah.

Here again, Jesus refers to belief.  For unbelief, Jerusalem will be destroyed.  In this case, it’s destruction in this life, but it serves as a lesson nonetheless.  The destruction of Jerusalem by Rome shows God’s wrath poured out on those who reject the Messiah.  It presages the wrath that all will suffer on the great day if they reject Jesus.

Thoughts
Life is serious and the question of belief is not to be taken lightly.  There is nothing more important in our life than whether we believe in the person and work of Jesus.  Nothing else ultimately matters if that question isn’t resolved.  And the time to believe is limited.  No one lives forever and no one has tomorrow guaranteed.  The time to believe is now because the judgment for unbelief is real, horrific, and final.  There are no appeals on the other side of the grave.

While this passage has much to say to unbelievers, it speaks to believers too.  Life is urgent.  While we – by the grace of God – believe, we still must live in light of eternity.  We won’t stand before God to be judged, but we will stand before Him and give an account of the deeds done in our lives.  And while it’s not entirely clear in the scriptures, it appears that there will be reward and loss of reward for those who enter the kingdom.  All in all, the time to obey and bear fruit is now just as much as the time for belief is now.

One more critical item to glean from this passage.  Jesus longs for all to be saved and takes no joy from the destruction of sinners.  Even with its history, Jesus cries out for Jerusalem and mourns its rejection of Him.  He loves the people and wants nothing more than to gather them as His children.  That they reject Him causes Him to grieve not because He’s been rejected, but because He knows the ramifications for them.  Belief saves them.  Rejection dooms them.  He loves them and wants what’s best for them.

And that’s God’s position toward all sinners.  He longs for them to come to Him and mourns those who don’t.  When God gives the Law to Moses, He says something to Moses that shows His heart.  After the Israelites agree to abide by the Law, God says, “Oh that they had such a mind as this always, to fear Me and to keep all My commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!” (Deut 5:29).  God speaks wistfully!  He longs for them to keep His commandments because it’s what’s best for them.  And that’s His attitude toward all who have the chance to believe in this life.  It’s why Peter says God doesn’t wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance (II Pet 3:9).

How do we reconcile this with God’s sovereignty over who believes and who doesn’t?  That’s a great question without an easy answer.  How God can simultaneously decide who believes and grieve those who don’t is beyond our understanding (or at least the understanding of this study).

The bottom line with this passage and the earlier text in verses 1-9 of Chapter 13 is that we must live urgently, believe and serve now, and wonder at a God who loves us enough to want us to serve Him because it’s what’s best for us.