The nature of conversion; Luke 11: 27-36

As I study the book of Luke, I am more cognizant than ever that in addition to the biographical aspect of Luke’s gospel, he is also arranging the events in a certain order which is designed to produce a certain message, which may be less obvious, but is essential to understanding his gospel.  In other words, Luke includes biographical events in a particular order so as to present an almost subliminal message in addition to Jesus’ biography.  So as we come to this passage today, we need to remember that we are jumping into an ongoing message that Luke is presenting through specific, historical events, and as such we should endeavor to understand how these events contribute to his underlying message.

As we look at the context of this passage, I believe that it can be determined that this is a message regarding the true nature of conversion, or the true nature of salvation.  Luke started this section with the Lord’s prayer and we noted that the key to understanding the Lord’s prayer is that because of conversion we have the privilege of calling God our Father.  And verses 5-13 continue to emphasize that relationship with God our Father born out of our new birth, or conversion.

The next section deals with another aspect of conversion: that salvation is comprehensive.  Luke’s record of Jesus’ teaching in vs. 14-26 makes it clear that you are either in the kingdom of God or you are not.  You are either a child of God or a child of the devil.  That there is no middle ground.  You can’t be sort of converted, or half way saved.  You either are saved or you aren’t.  You are either for Christ or you are against Him.  Conversion is comprehensive, it is all consuming.  Repentance requires a complete reversal, a complete change of direction.

And the next three passages we are going to look at today continue to deal with the nature of conversion. I have given them three headings under the title of the nature of conversion; first the nature of relationship, second the nature of repentance, and third the nature of revelation. 

Let’s look first at the nature of relationship starting in vs. 27, “While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.”  But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”

In the scene presented Jesus is preaching about the comprehensiveness of conversion, that you are either born of God or you are born of your father the devil, and suddenly out of the crowd a woman calls out, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts at which You nursed.”  Not exactly the sort of thing you commonly hear yelled out at most church services. But many commentators seem to think that what this woman called out wasn’t such a bad thing.  They say that this could have been a colloquialism that basically meant “You are so wonderful that whoever was your mother would be proud of you and is blessed to have a Son like You.”  But I am not so sure this woman was being quite so altruistic.   I think she was deliberately distracting attention from Jesus and shifting it over to His mother. 

This is a ploy that Satan has been using for  hundreds of years, by the way.  The Catholics in particular have produced a doctrine concerning the blessedness of Mary that in some aspects surpasses that of Christ.  Mary is venerated and prayed to at the exclusion of worshipping Jesus Christ as the Son of God.  Certainly Mary was blessed above all women in that she was chosen to be the vessel by which Jesus Christ would come into human form.  But let’s not forget that Jesus existed from eternity as God before He was given birth to by Mary.  Whereas Mary was a mere mortal who needed salvation just like everyone does.  Catholics teach a number of erroneous doctrines concerning Mary; one is that she remained a virgin.  And yet the Bible teaches that she had other sons and daughters after the birth of Jesus. In Matt. 13:55 the Jews asked, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us?”

Another false doctrine is taught concerning the assumption of Mary which teaches that she was taken into heaven in bodily form.  Some Catholic officials have claimed that she never died, that she was not guilty of any sin and so God took her to heaven because death is the punishment for sin and since she never sinned then she would not have to die.  None of this, of course, is mentioned in scripture, and even the Catholics have a hard time finding any evidence for this doctrine except through circular reasoning from their own tradition. 

And the other primary false doctrine is that which teaches that one can pray to Mary and she will intercede for them in heaven.  Again, there is no Biblical basis whatsoever to support this practice, but conversely verses such as 1 Tim.2:5 tells us that there is only one intercessor between God and man and that is Christ Jesus.

So I believe that this woman’s comment was meant to distract their attention away from Jesus who is the only way to salvation and to turn people’s attention to his mother who never can be a means of salvation. Acts 4:12, “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

In fact, in both this verse and in Luke 8, Jesus had the opportunity to affirm some divine role of Mary in addition to being His earthly mother, but instead Jesus consistently chooses to downplay her significance.  Jesus says, “on the contrary…” He isn’t agreeing with this woman’s statement, but He is offering an alternative, even contradictory statement.  In Luke 8:21 Jesus answers to those who said His mother and brothers were outside, “My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.”

Notice how similar that statement is to the one here in vs. 28, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”  They are practically identical statements.  First Jesus is emphasizing the importance of the word of God.  The word of God must be preeminent in our worship.  We don’t preach the word here because we have no other resources, or because we don’t have enough imagination to come up with some clever media presentation, but we preach the word of God because it is the power of God unto salvation.  Because 2 Tim. 4:2 says “Preach the word, in season and out of season.” The word of God is the instrument of the Holy Spirit which is described as a double edged sword going deep into our hearts to divide between soul and spirit, to convict us of sin, to instruct us in righteousness, to rebuke us when necessary and to build us up in our faith. 

But it’s not enough to merely hear the word, but to be doers of the word. James 1:22 says, “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.”  And see, that is the point that Jesus is making.  It’s not those that just hear the word that are converted, but those that obey the word.  The nature of conversion is that there will be obedience to what the word says.  Jesus said in Luke 6:46 “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?”  If you truly have established Jesus as Lord of your life, then you will do what He commands. 

And so Jesus is making a point here about the nature of relationship.  You hear so many evangelical’s today talking about one’s need to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.  They emphasize that He loves you and just wants to have a relationship with you.  But listen, His relationship with us is described in Ephesians 5 as the relationship between a husband and his wife.  It’s a relationship founded upon our submissiveness to Him as the head, Jesus as our Lord, and our fidelity only to Him, forsaking all others, loving and serving only Him.  Jesus is teaching that there can be no relationship without obedience.  No one, including even His mother, is excluded from the need for a supernatural rebirth, by which we gain our relationship to God as our Father and that comes only on the basis of faith and repentance.  You can’t claim a relationship with God based on your lineage, or your nationality, or some ritual, but only through adoption which comes as a result of faith and repentance.

That brings us to the next point regarding the nature of conversion, which is the nature of repentance.  As the crowds were increasing, it says in vs. 29, “He began to say, “This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah.”  Now this is really Jesus response to the unbelievers who had asked Him back in vs. 16 for a sign.  Jesus had been doing many signs all throughout Galilee and Judea.  Everyone had heard of the healings and casting out demons and so forth that He had done.  And yet they wanted something more, they remained unconvinced and unrepentant.  We could speculate on what it was that they wanted to see, perhaps a flaming sign in the sky which would declare Him to be God. 

But I think that in reality nothing was going to change some of the people’s minds that were there.  First of all, God has established that the just shall live by faith, not by sight.  So their desire to have Him prove Himself to meet their expectations was really a test, similar to the tests that Satan tempted Jesus with in the wilderness. Satan tried to get Jesus to cast Himself off a building in order to prove to the multitudes that He was the Christ.  But Jesus says to him in  Matthew 4:7, “It is written, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.’”  In every instance, Jesus answers back the temptations of Satan with the scriptures, once again emphasizing the sufficiency of scripture.  And that was exactly what these unbelievers were trying to do. They wanted to set a standard that Christ would have to meet in order for them to believe Him.  But if He did what they wanted, Jesus would become their puppet, rather than their God.

Jesus called these people who wanted Him to produce some sign an evil generation.  And I cannot help but think of the great fascination there is in the church today with signs and wonders.  This desire for signs has led many foolish people into the world of fake healers and charlatans and to ultimately a disregard for the word of God.  Their experience supersedes the supremacy of scripture.  So they go astray further and further from the truth of God’s word believing that God reveals truth just to them, often in opposition to what He has revealed in His word.  But folks, every thing must be compared to God’s revealed word in scripture.  He cannot deny Himself, He cannot contradict Himself, for that would make Him a liar.

So Jesus says there will be no sign given to them other than the sign of Jonah.  Vs. 30, “For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.”  Now the obvious question is what was the sign to the Ninevites?  The answer is found in the parallel gospel account in  Matt. 12:40, “for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”  Jesus is saying that the sign is going to be His resurrection from the dead. 

And yet the fact is, we are told in Acts that only 500 of Jesus’ disciples witnessed His resurrected body.  That illustrates an important Biblical principle found in Luke 8:18, that to him who has, more shall be given.  It’s the progressive nature of revelation. That’s why it’s important to believe by faith and then be obedient to what you have believed and God will then continue to reveal Himself to you through His word and through His working in your life.  But when you choose to remain unconvinced unless you get all your questions answered just to your liking, and basically get God to bow to your will, then you aren’t going to get anything more.  God says in Romans 1 that He gave enough evidence in creation to teach man to seek God and to understand the eternal character of God, but yet man turned to speculation and eventually to worship the creature rather than the Creator.  And so God gave them over to a depraved mind, to reap the penalty of their error.

So Jesus pronounces judgment on them in vs. 31, “The Queen of the South will rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.”

And these statements speak to the nature of repentance.  The Queen of the South was the Queen of Sheba who came with all her entourage to see the wisdom of Solomon.  And the Bible says that she gave untold riches to hear the truth about the God of the Israelites.  And when she left to go back home, she blessed God.  Now she speaks of the nature of repentance in the sense that she understood that the wisdom of God was of more importance than any riches, and gladly gave up her kingdom and her riches to come to the kingdom of God. Jesus gave a parable to that effect in Matt. 13:45, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”

The second statement Jesus makes regarding the men of Nineveh speaks to another element of the nature of repentance.  You may remember the story that when Jonah preached of the coming judgment, that the king of Nineveh issued a proclamation which said, “In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands.”

Listen, the nature of true repentance requires not just being sorry for your sins, nor just wishing to be relieved of the consequences of your sin, but like the Ninevites turning from your sin.  That is what the entire city of Nineveh did.  They did a wholesale reversal, a complete capitulation. They abandoned their sin and called out to God for forgiveness.  They showed true repentance, and in Jonah 3:10 it says when God saw their deeds, He did not bring the calamity upon them.    

See, this is what John the Baptist was talking about in Matt. 3:8 when the Pharisees came to be baptized by John’s baptism of repentance.  He said, ““Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance.”  It’s not just confession or some ritual that saves you, it’s the fruit of repentance.  Obedience to what God has told us to do.  The same thing Jesus said back in vs. 28. “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

Now let’s look at the final aspect of conversion which is the nature of revelation.  Vs. 33; Jesus says, “No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it away in a cellar nor under a basket, but on the lamp stand, so that those who enter may see the light. The eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness.  Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness.  If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no dark part in it, it will be wholly illumined, as when the lamp illumines you with its rays.”

This is the point that Jesus is making: that we are illumined by the word of God in order to be a light to the world.  Jesus explained this principle in  Luke 8:16, “Now no one after lighting a lamp covers it over with a container, or puts it under a bed; but he puts it on a lamp stand, so that those who come in may see the light.”  Jesus said in Matt. 5:16  that we are the light of the world, a city sat on a hill cannot be hidden. 

Now there are two aspects to this principle.  One is that we cannot be a testimony to the world if we are still living in sin.  Christians are illumined with the truth of God’s word.  We are then to reflect that light to the world.  But when we fall back into the sin of the world we have been saved from, then our light grows dim and sometimes goes out altogether.  When the unsaved world sees a Christian living like the devil, then he isn’t drawn to the light.  But he is repelled by our hypocrisy. 

The final section of this passage Jesus preaches against hypocrisy.  He preaches against those that wash the outside of the cup and yet the inside is full of wickedness.   But rather true repentance results in the full revelation of God upon you as you become obedient to His word, so that according to Matt. 5:16 we may “Let our light shine before men in such a way that they may see our good works, and glorify our Father who is in heaven.”

One other aspect concerning the nature of revelation is that it will be denied to those who are unbelieving.  He says in vs. 34, “The eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness. If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no dark part in it, it will be wholly illumined, as when the lamp illumines you with its rays.” Here is what He is saying, that if you don’t have the illumination on the inside that comes from the Spirit of God, then you won’t be able to see the truth.  You will be blind to the truth.  No amount of signs and wonders are going to be able to save you, because you have an unbelieving heart, a heart still in darkness. The problem is not that of light, Jesus is the light of the world.  There is plenty of light revealed through creation and the word of God that we might be saved.  The problem is a matter of sight.  The problem is they were blind and yet they thought that they could see. 

Paul says Rom. 11:8, quoting from the Old Testament, “just as it is written, GOD GAVE THEM A SPIRIT OF STUPOR, EYES TO SEE NOT AND EARS TO HEAR NOT,

DOWN TO THIS VERY DAY.”  See, the point is the Pharisees said they could see, but they were in fact blind.  They failed to believe in the Son of God and obey His word, and so rather than being given eyes to see, they remained blind.

Jesus said something similar by quoting another Old Testament passage in Mark 4:12, He said, “so that WHILE SEEING, THEY MAY SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE, AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR AND NOT UNDERSTAND, OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT RETURN AND BE FORGIVEN.”

Listen folks, don’t lose sight of the truth of the gospel and the purpose of the gospel in our fascination with signs and wonders and miracles. Remember Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. But Jesus healed the blind so that we might have the blindness of our hearts healed, so that we might see the truth of the word of God.  Jesus healed the sick so that we might have the disease of sin healed in our hearts, that we might be saved.  Jesus raised the dead so that we might be raised from the deadness of sin in our hearts into new life with Christ.  Jesus cast out demons so that we might be taken from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. 

Listen, the nature of conversion is to first of all recognize that you are blind, that you are sick, you are dead in your sins and you need deliverance from the trap of the devil.  And the Bible says that if you come to Him with a broken and contrite heart, a truly repentant heart that wants to turn completely away from your sins, you can be saved.  You can be converted from darkness to light, from a child of the devil into a child of God and have that relationship Jesus talked about with God as your Father. 

And if you are a child of God, and you have been given the illumination that comes through the revelation of His word, then I hope that you will purpose today to be a light that is set on a hill, that men will see your good works and glorify God.  We were not given light that we should hide it under a basket.  Let’s live it out and obey Christ as a testimony to the power of salvation before the world.