Luke 9:56

For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.

For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them - a saying truly divine, of which, all His miracles-for salvation, never destruction-were one continued illustration.

And they went to another village - illustrating His own precept (), "When they persecute you in one city, flee ye to another." Tischendorf and Tregelles greatly curtail the text in this passage, leaving out all that we here enclose in brackets: . [Even as Elias.] . But he turned and rebuked them, [and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. . For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.] Lachmann admits, "Even as Elias," but excludes all the rest. The authority on which this is done, though ancient and weighty, is decidedly inferior, in our judgment, to that in favour of the received text-so far as , are concerned. For the exclusion of the authorities are more formidable; and some critics, who abide by the received text up to that verse, think themselves bound to reject it, as probably inserted from , and . But we agree with Alford in retaining the whole, on internal as well as external evidence. The saying in cannot fairly be identified with this one.

Remarks: How easily may the heat of human anger mingle with zeal for the Lord, and be confounded with it, as in the case of James and John here; and how slow are we to learn that "the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God" (). Confounding the Legal and the Evangelical dispensations, has been the fruitful source, as of woeful corruption of the worship of God, so of hateful persecution in the name of religion. While attempts to graft the spirit of the ancient ritual upon the worship of the Christian Church has led to a monstrous caricature of the temple-service and the Aaronic priesthood in the Church of Rome, the merciless vengeance which was required to be taken, and which sometimes miraculously descended, upon the despisers of Moses' law has been regarded as the model and law of the Christian Church; and Christian magistrates have been hounded on-not by the Church of Rome only, but, alas! by others also-to execute what was called the just judgment of God upon the unbelieving and the heretical But that great saying of Christ, "The Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them," should forever banish and brand such a mode of treating errorists as contrary to the entire genius of the Gospel. It is a golden saying of Tillotson, as Webster and Wilkinson remark, that we should never do anything for religion which is against religion.