Exegesis Paper on Luke 12:49-53
“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. 52 For now on five in one house there will be 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. (Luke 12:49-53) “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled (v49)! ”
As I read these words from this passage again, I can almost hear the urgency and emotion that was in Jesus’ voice when he spoke them. “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled (v49)! ” This is Jesus describing his mission, his purpose for entering into our world: to cast fire on the earth. Yet it had not happened yet, for with great longing in his voice, he tells his disciples, “how I wish it were already kindled (v49)! But whatever do these strange words mean? What is this fire about which Christ speaks of? How or when did he cast this fire to the earth, if he ever did? There are occasions in the Bible when fire did fall from heaven. Fire and brimstone fell from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24-25) and destroyed those towns and all its inhabitants. One of the ten plagues against Egypt was fire and hail from heaven (Exodus 9:3). The prophet Elijah called down fire from heaven that incinerated soldiers sent from wicked King Ahaziah (2 Kings 1:9-17).
Lightning is sometimes described as fire from heaven in the Bible (Psalm 27:9; Psalm 144:5-6). All of these fires from God, however, were destructive fires. And it is the destructive and consuming force of fire that we usually think of when we think of fire. Does it sound like Jesus to be longing and wishing for destruction? No, the fire that Jesus came to cast on the earth is none of those fires. It is not a destructive fire. It is the fire of the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures sometimes associates the Holy Spirit with fire.
In the book of Revelation, the Holy Spirit is pictured as “seven lamp stands with burning flames” (Revelation 4:5). John the Baptist prophesied concerning Jesus, “I baptize you with water, but he who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Luke 3:16). But do we have any Biblical evidence that Jesus ever sent the Holy Spirit from heaven in the form of fire? Yes we do and it happened on the Day of Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2. 1“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared to them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability (Acts 2:1-4).
”Later, when Peter stood up and preached a sermon before thousands of curious onlookers, he explained to them what the tongues of fire meant, 32 “This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. 3Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear (Acts 2:32-33). The resurrected Jesus, ascended to the right hand of God had poured forth the Holy Spirit from heaven; he had cast the fire of the Holy Spirit to the earth. When the fire of the Spirit fell upon the apostles they were transformed; they were filled with boldness, they praised the mighty works of God in many languages, and they spoke the Word of God to the gathered people.
The fire was kindled! 3000 were baptized and converted on that one day. And that kindled fire spread throughout Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). But when Jesus spoke the words of our text, the day of Pentecost was still in the distant future. Our Lord knew that before the great day of casting fire upon the earth could come, something of monumental significance had to happen first. Our Lord put it this way, “I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed (v51)! ”One thing is sure.
Jesus was not referring to his baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist; that baptism had already happened. No, he was referring to another kind of baptism, a baptism that filled Jesus with distress as he thought about it; a baptism that he desperately wanted to be completed. He was talking about the baptism of his death and resurrection. For truly baptism is a death and resurrection. Listen to Paul in Romans 6 describe what happens when a Christian is baptized: 3“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3-4). ” Paul is not merely saying that baptism pictures a death and resurrection. He is saying that those who are baptized truly die with Christ, are buried with Christ, and rise again with Christ. Their sinful nature is put to death and they arise as new creations. Jesus was our ultimate sacrifice who paid the ultimate price for our sins, but it wasn’t enough for Jesus to just die on the cross.
He also had to be buried and resurrect from the dead. Through the acts of his death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus bought our salvation. He purchased salvation with his own blood and made it available to all who obey him. Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice for our sins by dying on the cross. He went to the cross perfect and sinless. He did not deserve death. He was the only person that could make atonement for our sins. In order to make atonement, the sacrifice had to be without blemish and without sin. This is why we cannot atone for our own sins. We are born into sin.
Jesus was not born into sin because God was his father. We have to identify with his death by dying to sin. We die to sin, put off the old man, by repenting of our sins and turning away from sin. We can’t kill the sinful nature. What we put to death is the control the sinful nature has over us. 12 “Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13 No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. 4 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law, but under grace (Romans 6:12-14). ” Christians are not under the control of sin. We must live an overcoming life and not allow sin to work in our lives. “When then are we to say? Should we continue in sin, in order that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? (Romans 6:1-2). ”When Jesus died on the cross, He, who had no sin, paid the death penalty for our sins. Through baptism we are united, or joined with Christ in paying the death penalty for sin.
We are baptized into His death, into the death penalty for sin. We, who are unable to return from death because we have sin, are joined to Christ and since Christ is sinless and was victorious over death, we, now being united with Him through baptism, are made victorious being united with Christ in His resurrection. Now if God allows us to participate in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, an event which occurred 2000 years ago, through baptism, it can truly be said we are saved through faith and God’s grace!
Baptism can be likened to the Israelites coming up out of the land of slavery, passing through the Red Sea and entering the Promised Land. Baptism can be likened to passing through the flood of Noah. Baptism is about leaving our old sinful, worldly ways behind and taking upon our shoulders the yoke of Christ. It is about lifestyle change and dying to ourselves and doing God’s will instead of ours. Our reason and purpose for living changes after baptism. Afterward is a new way of life.
Baptism is about heart, faith, total commitment, surrender, self-denial, death, resurrection, repentance, and seeking God’s mercy through Jesus Christ and the work He did on that cross on that day of infamy 2000 years ago. That is what Jesus meant by his baptism: His death and resurrection which atoned for the sins of the whole world, by which God offers forgiveness and eternal life to all who believe and are baptized, “he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world, 1 John 2:2). But once Jesus underwent his “baptism,” then he could, and did, cast fire on the earth, that is, gave the Spirit to his church. From that day until this the fire of the Spirit has fallen on the Church, and through it, has set the unbelieving world ablaze; this raging fire has spread, bringing not destruction, but salvation to an uncountable number. There is great debate as to what this “fire” is that Jesus wants to pour upon the earth, but it is more than likely that Jesus is speaking about the coming of the kingdom of God and of the terrible judgment that faces humanity in that day.
The coming day of the kingdom is not prefigured by “peace” on earth, but rather by “fire”. There is ultimately the fire of the great judicial inquest, but in the meantime, the Day of Judgment is prefigured in the fire of Jesus “baptism”, (v50), and in the fire of “division”, (v51). Jesus knows well enough now that the coming kingdom of God is realized through tribulation, and for Jesus, this means suffering and death. Jesus must himself face the wrath of God and so he sets his eyes turned toward Calvary and with determination, presses onward toward the end.
Jesus’ “baptism” (the word is being used figuratively here) is his suffering and death on the cross, his atoning sacrifice for sin on behalf of those who have put their trust in him for salvation. In verse 51. Jesus aligns himself with the Old Testament prophets when he reminds his listeners that the coming day of the Lord is not a day of peace, but rather, is a day of judgment, a day of apocalyptic tribulation, a day when the saved are separated from those doomed to destruction. In the present moment, this coming day is prefigured in social division, (v52-53).
We know that Jesus makes much of the sign of “love”, the love of the brotherhood, but what we have here is another sign of the kingdom, the sign of division. Jesus now explains what he means by “division” and then, in (v53), supports his words by quoting Micah 7:6. “Division” was one of the commonly expected signs of the coming messianic kingdom, and so now, with the coming of Jesus the messiah, families can expect that household members will “turn against one another”. Some members of the family will stand with Jesus and others will stand against him. His coming would inevitably mean division;in other words, it did.
That was one of the great reasons why the Romans hated Christianity because it tore families in two. Over and over again a man had to decide whether he loved better his friends and kin or Christ. The essence of Christianity is that loyalty to Christ has to take precedence over the dearest loyalty to Christ has to take precedence over the dearest loyalty of this earth. In other words a man must be prepared to count all things but loss for the excellence of Jesus Christ. In this Luke passage, we see Jesus pressing on toward Jerusalem and the cross, or as he calls it, his baptism.
For Jesus, the cross was ever before his eyes. How different from Jewish idea of God’s King! Jesus came, not with avenging armies and flying banners, but to give his life a ransom for many. In his death, Jesus’ draws us close to the “fire” of the great judicial inquest. For the present, “division” prefigures that terrible day, a division realized through the preaching of the gospel. Some accept the Spirit-inspired message, but many reject it. None-the-less, through the proclamation of the gospel the kingdom of God finds its consummation.
