Main news for 22 August 2005

King James Version (en)

Luke, Chapter 13, verse 24

²⁴ exhorteth to enter in at the strait gate

²⁴Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

NOTES

Today's reading continues the theme of the Kingdom, but now in a somewhat different, eschatological aspect. Eschatology is often confused with apocalyptic, yet they are not the same. Eschatology is a rupture in time and history through which the Kingdom can be seen; apocalyptic is a philosophy of history in which history is viewed as the process of the world's movement towards the Kingdom.

Jesus often speaks of the coming of the Kingdom as a rupture in time, when the former order of things comes to an end. It then becomes clear that, in the face of the new reality revealed at the moment of rupture, former assessments and criteria prove inadequate. This is manifested first of all in a change of priorities: if outward proximity previously played the decisive role, spiritual relationships now do.

When speaking of outward proximity, of course, one must not have only territorial or geographical proximity in mind. National, religious, and every other kind of proximity determined in one way or another by the structure and laws of the untransformed world is also implied here (vv. 25-28). Spiritual proximity, by contrast, becomes decisive (vv. 29-30). This is why the path into the Kingdom proves narrow (vv. 23-24): it begins in a world not yet transformed, living by laws very far from the laws of the Kingdom, but in order to enter the Kingdom, one must begin living by its laws here and now.

This is neither a whim nor a test of loyalty. One can follow the path into the Kingdom only by living according to its laws. For the Kingdom itself, in our world which is not yet fully transformed, depends on those who seek it. It is no accident that Jesus draws His listeners' attention to the fact that at first the Kingdom is completely imperceptible in the world that rejects it and becomes visible only at the end, when the world is transformed (vv. 18-21). Only the person who bears the Kingdom within can find it, and such a person cannot live according to the laws of the world lying in evil. This is why the path leading into the Kingdom proves narrow. But at its end lies the fullness of life awaiting everyone who follows this path to the end.

We have read many times already that Christ's Kingdom is not like all our human "kingdoms." It is like salt in food, like yeast in dough, like...

The Lord Jesus Christ spoke these words in answer to an unknown person's puzzled question about the number of those being saved. As far as one can judge, the logic of the conversation from which the evangelist Luke recorded only Christ's words is as follows. The Lord says more than once that salvation depends on a person's thoughts and deeds, on the state of his heart, on his relation to God. He calls people to repentance and to the correction of life; in the absence of all this, salvation is obviously impossible. Many Jews of that time, though not all, believed that with the coming of the Messiah, salvation would automatically be given to all "full" participants in the Old Covenant. In part this view was determined by an overly primitive understanding of the prophets' words, and in part it was a legacy of the formal religiosity of the post-exilic era. In one way or another, the thought that salvation from sin and death would not be given to everyone and not automatically caused bewilderment in many, and even strong protest. It is in this context that the question put to Christ apparently sounds: "Will those who are saved be few?".

"If there really are few who are saved, if not all Jews automatically fall into their number, then I may not be among them!" This is the emotional subtext of the question. It must be said that "assigning" whole categories of people to the saved regardless of their personal spiritual condition is a very common thing, characteristic not only of Jewish thinking, but of human thinking in general. In answering this, the Lord Jesus Christ shifts the conversation to an entirely different plane. He does not offer new criteria for selecting those who will or will not be saved. The Lord addresses the questioner personally, saying that salvation depends on the will and efforts of each concrete person. The path of salvation must be sought, and the entrance into the Kingdom is the narrow gate, through which one can pass only by applying effort. "Strive," says the Greek text of the Gospel; "labor in spiritual struggle," the Synodal text brilliantly translates this verb. The matter, then, is not how narrow the gate is, but what the will and effort of the person himself are like.

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