Luke 9

Luke 9:1-6 . MISSION OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES.

1. power and authority--He both qualified and authorized them.

Luke 9:7-9 . HEROD TROUBLED AT WHAT HE HEARS OF CHRIST DESIRES TO SEE HIM.

7. perplexed--at a loss, embarrassed.
said of some, that John was risen--Among many opinions, this was the one which Herod himself adopted, for the reason, no doubt, mentioned on Mark 6:14 .

9. desired to see him--but did not, till as a prisoner He was sent to him by Pilate just before His death, as we learn from Luke 23:8 .

Luke 9:10-17 . ON THE RETURN OF THE TWELVE JESUS RETIRES WITH THEM TO BETHSAIDA, AND THERE MIRACULOUSLY FEEDS FIVE THOUSAND.

Luke 9:18-27 . PETER'S CONFESSION OF CHRIST--OUR LORD'S FIRST EXPLICIT ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS APPROACHING DEATH, AND WARNINGS ARISING OUT OF IT.

24. will save--"Is minded to save," bent on saving. The pith of this maxim depends--as often in such weighty sayings (for example, "Let the dead bury the dead," Matthew 8:22 )--on the double sense attached to the word "life," a lower and a higher, the natural and the spiritual, temporal and eternal. An entire sacrifice of the lower, or a willingness to make it, is indispensable to the preservation of the higher life; and he who cannot bring himself to surrender the one for the sake of the other shall eventually lose both.

26. ashamed of me, and of my words--The sense of shame is one of the strongest in our nature, one of the social affections founded on our love of reputation, which causes instinctive aversion to what is fitted to lower it, and was given us as a preservative from all that is properly shameful. When one is, in this sense of it, lost to shame, he is nearly past hope ( Zechariah 3:5 , Jeremiah 6:15 , 3:3 ). But when Christ and "His words"--Christianity, especially in its more spiritual and uncompromising features--are unpopular, the same instinctive desire to stand well with others begets the temptation to be ashamed of Him, which only the 'expulsive power' of a higher affection can effectually counteract.
Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh, &c.--He will render to that man his own treatment; He will disown him before the most august of all assemblies, and put him to "shame and everlasting contempt" ( Daniel 12:2 ). "Oh shame, to be put to shame before God, Christ, and angels!" [BENGEL].

27. not taste of death fill they see the kingdom of God--"see it come with power" ( Mark 9:1 ); or see "the Son of man coming in His kingdom" ( Matthew 16:28 ). The reference, beyond doubt, is to the firm establishment and victorious progress, in the lifetime of some then present, of that new Kingdom of Christ, which was destined to work the greatest of all changes on this earth, and be the grand pledge of His final coming in glory.

Luke 9:28-36 . JESUS TRANSFIGURED.