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Luke 12:49-53

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Luke 12. We’ve been in Mark’s Gospel and Matthew’s Gospel; next week, we’ll conclude this little series in the epistle of James with the question “What Is Your Life?” But this morning, we’re looking to the 12th chapter of Luke’s Gospel – to a very interesting and confounding question posed by Jesus: “Do you think that I came to bring peace?”

Popular perception, in the world, concerning Jesus, is that He was a man of love who came to bring peace, that His message was peace on earth, that He demonstrated peace through love. That’s sort of the pop idea about Jesus that we hear from the world, and why not, it’s reinforced during the Christmas season, right? We read Isaiah 9:6-7, which says, “For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and of peace there will be no end.” And who can forget the angels’ announcement to the shepherds, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!” (Luke 2:14).

But the text in front of us today begins with a statement that seems absolutely contrary to those notions. Jesus is offering us another reason for His incarnation. In fact, His explanation for His birth, in these verses, is not just difficult, it’s shocking. Think about some of the other reasons that Jesus gave concerning His birth. He said, “I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). He said, “I came not to be served, but to serve, and to give My life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28, Mark 10:45). During His trial, before Pontius Pilate, He said, “I came to bear witness to the truth, and all who are of the truth hear My word” (John 18:37). On this occasion, however, He gave another reason for His coming, and it’s one that is astonishing to hear.

If you were out in the parking lot on your way into church this morning, and somebody asked, “Why do you think Jesus came to this world?” – I doubt any of you would have answered by saying, “I think Jesus came to this world in order to bring fire on the earth.” That’s the last thing we would offer for why Jesus came, but that’s what He said in this text. These are the words of Jesus. Let’s read them (Luke 12:49-53):

49 “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is My distress until it is accomplished! 51 Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. 52 For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

I remind you that this is not the imagination of Luke from antiquity, but the inspired record of the actual words and teaching of Christ Himself. Remember, He said that He “spoke nothing of His own authority, but only on that which the Father had given Him” (John 12:49, paraphrased). So, the words you’ve just heard, as distasteful as they may be to your ears, come to you from God Himself. I urge you to receive them with the fullness of His authority. Let’s pray.

“Father, every time we come to the text of holy Scripture, we plead for Your assistance, because the things revealed therein are too high and too wonderful for us to discern correctly without Your aid. In this hour, we ask that You would condescend to our weakness and the frailty of our understanding, the resistance of our wills, the stiffness of our necks, the callouses on our hearts; break through all of these and give us ears to hear what Your Son says to His people. For we ask it in His name. Amen.”

Now, let me give you just a little bit of background. If you go back to Luke 12:1 he tells us that Jesus was speaking to many thousands of people, probably tens of thousands of people. So many people were gathered together that they were stepping on each other. Many of those gathered had already made up their minds concerning Jesus, but He was still the greatest curiosity in existence and the most profound teacher who ever lived. And so, He attracted massive crowds, even though most of the people stood by their leaders. On the other hand, some of those gathered were apostles. They had come to follow Jesus (by faith) and had been called to ministry. Some of them were the 70 who also had been sent out to minister for Him. Some of them had become believers and there were some who were just still open to hear more.

And the nature of the message that Jesus was proclaiming in Luke 12 is essentially a call to salvation. It’s a call to come to Him, to come into the kingdom of salvation, to receive the forgiveness and redemption that He brings. It’s an evangelistic invitation. It starts in verse 1 and it runs all the way to verse 9 in chapter 13.

First of all, He says you have to turn from the dominating influence of the false teachers in your false religion. You’ve got to get away from the liars and the deceivers (vss. 1-3). Then He says you have to stop fearing men, stop fearing the retribution that comes from men when you step out of your religious environment, and fear God who can destroy your soul and body in hell (vss. 4-7). You must also confess Jesus before men as your Lord and Savior (vss. 8-10). You must trust your life into the hands of the Holy Spirit because you’ll be facing persecution (vss. 11-12). You must reject the love of material things (vss. 13-21). You must turn away from preoccupation with the world and you must pursue with all your heart the kingdom of God through faith in Jesus Christ (vss. 22-34), and you must do it with urgency because verse 40 says, “The Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

Luke 12 is a strong message from Jesus. It’s direct, and the die has already been cast for most. Israel has no love for her Messiah. Israel has no desire for His kingdom. They have no interest for His type of salvation. They have no longing for His grace. They have no desire for the forgiveness He offers. The blindness of their minds through their own ignorance and the deception of their false leaders, has manipulated them sufficiently into a state of rejection that they will unite in murdering their own Messiah. That’s the background.

And it’s on the heels of this message and invitation that Jesus says He comes to bring division. Instead of uniting people in His kingdom of blessing, He divides them, and He divides them both in time and eternity. The text before us is a turning point in Luke’s Gospel. From now on, the warnings begin to dominate. The urgency is ratcheted up. Let’s look at the dividing event, dividing eternity, and dividing time.

Dividing Event

First of all, the dividing event. Verses 49 and 50: very powerful statements, very dramatic, very insightful into the heart of our Lord: “I have come to cast fire upon the earth and how I wish it were already kindled but I have a baptism to undergo and how distressed I am until it’s accomplished.” You read that and you scratch your head and say, “What’s He talking about?” I’ll tell you what He’s talking about. He’s looking at the one event that will separate all humanity, one event that divides eternity and time, one event that separates everyone into two categories. What is that event? (A: His death on the cross.)

Look at the language of verse 49, “I have come.” You say, “What’s the big deal with that pastor?” Well, let me show you. If you take that phrase and trace it through the Bible, whenever it comes out of the mouth of Jesus, He’s giving us part of His mission. For example, “I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). I have come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:16). I have come to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10). I have come to be a light (John 12:46).” Often, Jesus repeats why He’s come and each time you see that phrase, it’s another vantage point on His mission. Here, He says that He has come “to cast fire upon the earth.”

Now, fire is a picture of judgment. That’s in the Old Testament and the New Testament. For example, Isaiah 66:15 says, “For behold, the LORD will come in fire, and His chariots like the whirlwind, to render His anger in fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire.” Or here’s Joel 2:30-31, “And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.” The prophet Amos speaks about the fire of God’s judgment falling on Judah and Moab and Gaza. And the last book of the Old Testament, the prophet Malachi talks about God coming in fiery judgment, but the Jews believed that the fire would fall on the Gentiles and that the peace would come to them. They never expected that the Messiah would come and the fire of judgment would fall on them. It’s the fire of judgment.

But it’s not only a fire of judgment; it’s also a fire of purging. In John 3:18, Jesus said, “Whoever believes in [Me] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Fire consumes what is combustible and does not consume what is noncombustible. It purifies the noncombustible and it destroys the combustible and so the coming of Jesus is a fire. To those who believe in Him, it purifies. To those who reject Him, it consumes. It’s a fire of judgment and a fire of purification.

Jesus is talking about His death, because in the next verse, He calls it a baptism. Jesus was getting at the reality that the fire of the Father’s wrath would not merely touch Him and harm Him a little bit or singe His hair, but rather He would be immersed in it. He would be inundated by it and swallowed up by God’s wrath, which was meant for you and me. He’s looking at the cross, and He’s wishing it was over. Jesus is anticipating the dividing event. He’s pressed between the suffering and the purpose, between the anticipation of the pain and the plan, between His own will and the Father’s will, but He never wavered – “[N]ot My will but Yours be done.” “I’ve come to cast fire and it’s going to be kindled by the cross and that’s going to set the fire of judgment.” That will be the dividing point. That is where all men are divided. All men are divided at the cross, both in eternity and in time.

Dividing Eternity

Second, let’s look at dividing in eternity. “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” To understand this, we have to go back to the previous passage. Backing up to Luke 12:42, Jesus, told a parable. And He said there was a master who left. And this depicts the Lord, and he’s coming and you don’t know when he’s coming and he has given his servants responsibility. Verse 42 describes a faithful servant who does what he’s supposed to do and distributes the responsibility that he had and when his master comes back, he’s blessed and verse 44, the master puts the servant in charge of everything. This is a picture of somebody who’s ready when Jesus comes. This is a picture of somebody who obeys the gospel.

Jesus is describing a person who does what the Lord tells him to do, who’s obedient to the gospel, who makes the most of gospel opportunity and he’s ready when the Lord comes and he’s blessed and rewarded eternally. This is one who believes in Jesus Christ. This is one on this side of the cross and the resurrection who believes in His death and His resurrection, who confesses Jesus is Lord, who believes in his heart that God raised Him from the dead. These are the faithful.

But Jesus’ coming was also for the fall of some. Remember Simeon in Luke 2:34, when he’s talking to Mary, Jesus’ mother? He says, “Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel.” So, there are those who rise. They’re the faithful. But there are also the unfaithful. Again, in the parable just before our text, verses 45-48 describe the servant that’s unfaithful. He has little interest in his master’s return. He lives in defiant rebellion, even beating the other servants and living for himself.

So, you see, the cross divides everybody. You’re either with the faithful or you’re with the unfaithful. You’re either bound for heaven or you’re bound for hell and hell will always be punishment, always cut off from the life of God, always void of peace and joy and satisfaction and fulfillment, to whatever degree it’s experienced. The cross is the dividing point of all humanity, but it also divides for all eternity – in heaven or in hell. What you do with Jesus Christ on the cross in His death and resurrection determines your eternal destiny.

Dividing Time

Let’s conclude by looking at dividing in time. Verse 52, “For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three.” Just like earlier, let me take you back to the phrase that begins verse 52 – “For from now on…” That’s another one of those phrases that Jesus used frequently to signify something. He used it back in Luke 5:10 when He said to James, John and Peter. He said, “From now on, you will be fishers of men.” “From now on” sort of signifies the way it’s going to be. Luke 22:69, Jesus, anticipating His ascension, said, “From now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of God in heaven.” From now on. This is how it’s going to be, “in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three.”

The cross is a dividing event. It divides in eternity, but it also divides now. It divides in time today. John 7 says, “And there arose a division in the crowd because of Him.” John 9:16, “There was a division among them.” John 10, “There arose a division again among the Jews.” He divided everywhere He went. And Jesus went further to describe just how far this division in time goes. It’s happening today (not just in eternity, but in our lives today) and more specifically, it happens all the way down at the most intimate and personal level – the family. Jesus was quoting, to some degree, the prophet Micah (again). Listen to Micah 7:6, “for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.”

The personal testimony of one former pastor, theologian, and author reads like this:

I remember the first week I became a Christian, I came home assuming a joyous response would be forthcoming. I said to my mother: “Mom, guess what? I became a Christian this week.” She said, “You’ve always been a Christian,” as if being a Christian meant being an American. I said, “What I mean is that I’ve come to know Christ as my Savior.”

My mother had no clue what I was talking about. By the grace of God, she came to know, but in the meantime, my sister, cousins, uncles, and aunts did everything but disown me because I committed my life to Christ. That act cost me more friends than anything else in my life. I was shocked at how intense the hostility and animosity was toward Christ. You see it in the world every day and you even see it in the church. (Testimony of the late Dr. R.C. Sproul from a sermon titled The Dividing Christ.)

The cross is the great dividing event and at that point, we’re divided. We’re divided for eternity, and we’re divided in time, and He calls for sinners to choose blessing and reward in heaven rather than cursing and punishment in hell. He calls for you to make the break no matter what the cost might be in this life, and if it’s some consolation, and indeed it should be, I have some good news for you. Peter said to Jesus in Matthew 19:27, 29 “See, we have left everything and followed You. What then will we have? . . . Jesus said, “I say to you this, that everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake shall receive many times as much and shall inherit eternal life.” That’s good news. It’s worth the forsaking because you get eternal life. Oh, and not only that, you get us. You get the body of Christ. You get many brothers, many sisters, many fathers, many mothers, many children, and you get many resources that are supplied by the family of God.