Luke 18:18-34
Dear RTB’ers,
Jesus speaking: “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all the things that have been written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be handed over to the Gentiles, and will be ridiculed, and abused, and spit upon, and after they have flogged Him, they will kill Him; and on the third day He will rise.” (Luke 18:31b-33) Jesus had already predicted His death and resurrection earlier in Luke and (from The Chronological Study Bible) in Matthew and Mark, as well (Luke 9:22-27; Matthew 17:22-23; Mark 9:30-32). The Chronological Study Bible also has this prediction following Jesus’ raising Lazarus from the dead. I would think that, having heard it so many times and now seeing Lazarus’ resurrection, that the twelve would have had more understanding. Yet verse 34 says that …they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said. My guess is that inwardly they were denying His death and accordingly could not fathom His resurrection to any comprehensible degree. Even today many people would accept that Jesus was crucified and died, but are unwilling to accept the compelling evidence that He rose from the dead. Today it’s a matter of faith (or lack thereof); presumably it was the same back in the 1st century.
Jesus pinpoints details about His death in today’s reading much more than He had in His prior death prediction from Luke 9:22-27. The accuracy of His predictions strengthens the faith of believers, but also provides fodder for His antagonists to suggest that the Gospel writers wrote what they wanted well after the fact, so as to make Jesus’ words and those of the Old Testament prophets coincide with actual outcomes. Same comment I closed with in the first paragraph above – it’s a matter of faith (or lack thereof)!!
Blessings!