Luke 12:51

51 Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other!

Luke 12:51 Meaning and Commentary

Luke 12:51

Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth?
&c.] To set up a temporal kingdom, in great pomp, and outward peace and tranquility? Christ came to make peace with God for men, and to give the Gospel of peace, and spiritual and eternal peace to men; but not external peace, especially that, which is not consistent with the preservation of truth:

I tell you, nay;
whatever suppositions you have made, or whatever notions you have entertained, I solemnly affirm, and you may depend upon it, I am not come into the world on any such account, as to establish outward peace among men;

but rather division;
so he calls the Gospel, which in Matthew is styled a "sword"; and the Ethiopic version seems to have read both here, since it renders it, "but a sword that I may divide": the Gospel is the sword of the Spirit, which divides asunder soul and Spirit, and separates a man from his former principles and practices; and sets men apart from one another, even the nearest relations, at the greatest distance; and is, through the sin of man, the occasion of great contention, discord, and division.

Luke 12:51 In-Context

49 “I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning!

50 I have a terrible baptism of suffering ahead of me, and I am under a heavy burden until it is accomplished.

51 Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other!

52 From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or two in favor and three against.

53 ‘Father will be divided against son and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against mother; and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’ ”