Bible Commentaries

CHAPTER 17

1. Concerning Offenses and Forgiveness. (Luke 17:1-4)

2. Increase of Faith and Lowly Service. (Luke 17:5-10)

3. The Ten Lepers. (Luke 17:11-19)

4. Concerning the Kingdom and His Second Coming. (Luke 17:20-37)

Luke 17:1-19

The story of the ten lepers is only found in Luke. All were cleansed by the power of God and the nine obeyed the Word of the Lord and went to the priests (Leviticus 13:1-59; Leviticus 14:1-57). But the tenth did not go but instead turned back and glorified God with a loud voice and fell on his face at the feet of the Lord. He took the attitude of a worshipper; and he was a Samaritan. He turned his back upon the ceremonial law and owned the Giver of the blessing he had received. We have in this healed, worshipping Samaritan, who does not worship in the mountain of Samaria, nor in the temple in Jerusalem, an earnest of the new dispensation to come. (John 4:22-24.)

Luke 17:20-37

The question “when the Kingdom of God should come” is answered by the statement “the Kingdom of God is within you.” The translation is faulty. The “within” means “among”; so that we read “the Kingdom of God is among you.” It had appeared in their midst in the Person of the King. Then He spoke of His second coming. He reminds them of the days of Noah and the days of Lot. His coming here is His visible coming at the end of the age and not His coming for His Saints, which is a subsequent revelation. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.) Then one will be taken (in judgment as the People perished in Noah’s and Lot’s day) and the other left (on earth to be in the Kingdom).