Luke 6:11

‘But they were filled with mad fury, and discussed together one with another what they might do to Jesus.'

So they were mad with blind fury. All they could think of was how they could get rid of this man who was such a bain on their lives. Neither His compassion, nor His power to work miracles, moved them. For here was a man who was guilty of the greatest crime that a man of that day could commit. He did not agree with them, and said so.

In view of the parallel in the chiasmus it is clear that Luke intends us to see that these men were withered inside. Their inner hearts were not working properly. Their consciences were atrophied.

How could these men be so blind as not to see the truth? I remember as a schoolboy arriving home with a typical piece of schoolboy knowledge. My mother, eager that I should know the truth, fetched a book to show me that I was wrong. But I refused to look at it. She did not know what a blow it was to me to discover that all the books and encyclopaedias in the world were wrong on such an important matter. That is human nature. These men were simply like me. They wanted the truth to bend to fit into their pattern, and if it would not, they did not want to know.

This last incident has finalised this series of incidents from Luke 5:1 onwards, which has revealed how Jesus fulfils in Himself many of the Old Testament figures and promises. It has done it by manifesting two vital things about Jesus, firstly that He has come supremely as the Doer of good and Saver of life, acting as a positive figure in a negative world, and secondly that He has come as the One Who can restore those of the withered Creation Who respond to Him, making them into fruitful trees and living bones, while those whose hearts are atrophied will oppose Him and seek to do away with Him. In the subsection that follows Luke will now move on in order to show how He is establishing the new Israel. But before that the foundation is laid in the calling of the Twelve Apostles.