Luke 10:21-22 In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth… Whilst Jesus deemed it needful to warn His disciples against self-exaltation because of what they had been the means of doing, He Himself found in the successes which had accompanied their labours a ground for grateful rejoicing. In these successes He saw the firstfruits of a rich and glorious harvest; and He broke out into the exclamation — "I thank Thee, O Father!" &c. By the expression, "these things," our Saviour meant the great Divine truths which He had come into the world expressly to reveal, which He had commissioned these seventy disciples to announce in the towns they visited, and for the rejection of which He had a little while before upbraided the cities of Galilee. With respect to these Divine truths, Christ here makes a two-fold statement. I. HE SPEAKS OF THEM AS HAVING BEEN HIDDEN FROM SOME. 1. Divine truths were not hidden from these people through any want of outward revelation. 2. Nor through any lack of intellectual ability to understand them. They were "the wise and prudent." 3. Nor through any influence exerted by God for the purpose. "Thou hast hid," &c., must be interpreted in the broad light of our Saviour's teaching as a whole. 4. In what sense, then, are we to understand that Divine truths were hidden from these people? To answer this question we must first answer another, namely, Who were the wise and prudent from whom these truths were concealed? (1) They were not really the wise and prudent. (2) They supposed themselves to be so, and gloried in the supposition. There is in such a case an element of retribution of which we must not lose sight. The retribution consists in this — that these people, having wilfully shut their minds against the revelations of God's truth, are left by God to the consequences of their self-inflicted blindness. II. HE SPEAKS OF THEM AS HAVING BEEN REVEALED TO OTHERS. The word "babes" is clearly intended to be antithetic to the words "wise and prudent." As by the wise and prudent, the Saviour meant those who were proud, ostentatious, self-sufficient, thinking of themselves more highly than they ought to think, and looking down on others with a cold indifference or a supercilious contempt; so by babes He meant those who were humble, teachable, self-distrustful, feeling themselves to be destitute of all real good, and being willing to receive help and blessing from whatever quarter or in whatsoever way it might come. To such as these Divine truths were revealed, and only to such. 1. It was not because they had been favoured with a greater amount of light respecting these truths. 2. It was not because they had been supplied with better means of preparation for the reception of these truths. 3. It was not because they had been made the exclusive objects of a selecting love. 4. It was because they were in a fit and proper mood for the reception of spiritual truths. With respect to this revelation of Divine truths to the humble we have to notice two things, each of which suggests a practical lesson well worth learning:(1) It was a source of grateful joy to the Saviour's heart. (2) It had His cordial and unqualified acquiescence. In conclusion, let us remember that if we would be as babes to whom Divine truths are revealed, we must not only bow before God in self-abasement and contrition, but we must look for the revelation of those truths through Jesus Christ. This point comes out in ver. 22, "All things are delivered," etc. (B. Wilkinson, F. G. S.) Parallel Verses KJV: In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight. |
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