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And he was going through towns and villages, teaching and making way towards Jerusalem. But a certain one said to him, “Lord, those being saved - few?” (Luke’s AD 60 research report re Jesus: Chapter 13: 22-35)
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Who are these “saved”? Immediately before this question was asked, Jesus had reminded the crowd of the earth-shattering calamity arising from Adam and Eve which disastrously affected them and all their descendants, including you and me. See Info BU. Adam defied the LORD God and set the human race on our superiority worldview. Eve did the same by upholding her self-interest – her ME – ahead of loving the LORD God.
And the one said to them, “Agonize to come in through the narrow door! Because many, I state to you, will seek to come in and will not have strength. From when the house-over-lord may have risen and shut fast the door, and you may begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, stating, ‘Lord, open to us!’ and, responding, he will say to you, ‘I have not known who you yourself are.’”
Rather than answering the question, Jesus responded with deep concern for the questioner. “Agonize to come in through the narrow door!” Did you notice the “come in”? Is he already “in” as well as the way to “come in” and “be saved”? Is he also the “narrow door”? Those who “agonise to come in through the narrow door” and do “come in” are those who have become known to him. How awful to be told, “I have not known who you yourself are” after “the house-over-lord” locks the “narrow door.”
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“Then you will begin to state, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ And he will say, stating to you, I have not known who you are. Depart from me, all you workers of unrighteousness!
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Oh, dear. From this, one gathers that some people may think that Jesus knows them when he doesn’t. Those will have lived like Adam and Eve.
"In that place it will be the weeping and the gnashing of the teeth, when you may see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out outside. And people will have arrived from east and west, and from north and south, and they will be set at rest in the kingdom of God. And – look and see! – they who are last will be first, and they who are first will be last.”
At that time in Galilee around AD 30, those who thought they were known to the Lord God and thought themselves to be “saved” were the descendants of Abrahan through his grandson Israel. The “saved” ones would be there but would have come from outside that ethnic group, and be known by Jesus.
At that very hour some Pharisees came near stating to him, “Come out! And go from here! For Herod desires to kill you.” And he said to them, “You go! Say to that fox! Look and see! I cast out demons and accomplish cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I am complete.”
“Some Pharisees” wanted Jesus gone. They didn’t want to “come in.” They used the fox-like King “Herod”, the Rome-appointed puppet king, as the threat to Jesus’ life. Jesus will only “be complete” on “the third day.”
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“On the contrary, it is necessary for me to go today and tomorrow and to the having day. Because it is not acceptable that a prophet be destroyed outside Jerusalem.”
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Is “the having day” the same day as the “third day”? Was that “having day” going to be his resurrection day after having been “destroyed” and spent three days in the grave? If so, that “having day” would be the day when he would “be complete” – “having” all the “saved.”
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the killer of the prophets and the stoner of those sent to her. How often I desired to gather together your children like a hen gathers her own brood under the wings, and you have not desired it. Look and see! Your house is sent away from you. But I state to you, you may not see me until when it will arrive that you may say, ‘Honoured - the one coming - named Lord!’”
I wonder what those “Pharisees” thought about those sorrowful words.
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