Luke 12:4-7

Personal Security. “ And I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. 5. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear; fear Him which, after He hath killed, hath power to cast into hell: yea, I say unto you, fear Him. 6. Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings; and not one of them is forgotten before God? 7. But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows. ”

The success of their cause is certain. But what of their personal future? After Luke 11:49 there was good cause for some disquiet on this point. Here the heart of Jesus softens: the thought of the lot which some of them will have to undergo seems to render His own more dear to Him. Hence the tender form of address, To you, my friends. Certainly Luke did not invent this word; and if Matthew, in whom it is not found (Luke 10:28 et seq.), had used the same document as Luke, he would not have omitted it. Olshausen has taken up the strange idea, that by him who can cast into hell we are to understand, not God, but the devil, as if Scripture taught us to fear the devil, and not rather to resist him to his face (1 Peter 5:9; Jam 4:7).

The MSS. are divided between the forms ἀποκτεννόντων (Eolico-Doric, according to Bleek), ἀποκτενόντων (a corruption of the preceding), and ἀποκτεινόντων (the regular form). The term Gehenna (hell) properly signifies valley of Hinnom (˜ ֵגיאּהִנֹּםַ, Joshua 15:8, comp. Luke 18:16; 2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 7:31, etc.). It was a fresh and pleasant valley to the south of the hill of Zion, where were found in early times the king's gardens. But as it was there that the worship of Moloch was celebrated under the idolatrous kings, Josiah converted it into a place for sewage. The valley thus became the type, and its name the designation, of hell. This saying of Jesus distinguishes soul from body as emphatically as modern spiritualism can do. What are we to think of M. Renan, who dares to assert that Jesus did not know the exact distinction between those two elements of our being!

Jesus does not promise His disciples that their life shall always be safe. But if they perish, it will not be without the consent of an all-powerful Being, who is called their Father. The sayings which follow express by the most forcible emblems the idea of a providence which extends to the smallest details of human life.

To make a more appreciable sum, Luke speaks of five birds of the value of about two farthings. Matthew, who speaks of two birds only, gives their value at one farthing; that is, a little dearer. Did five cost proportionally a little less than two? Can we imagine one of the two evangelists amusing himself by making such changes in the text of the other, or in that of a common document! The expression before God is Hebraistic; it means that there is not one of those small creatures which is not individually present to the view of divine omniscience. The knowledge of God extends not only to our persons, but even to the most insignificant parts of our being, to those 140,000 hairs of which we lose some every day without paying the least attention. No fear, then; ye shall not fall without God's consent; and if He consent, it is because it will be for His child's good.