Luke 20:18 KJV
Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
All of the commentaries in my possession make the "but" in this verse more "and,"
Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; [AND] on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
In doing so they make it that one judgment builds upon the other rather than one being a contrast of the other.
The context seems to support that sort of thinking. In verse 19 the Bible says that the chief priests and scribes perceived that this parable was a judgment against them. In that case, each statement would be negative and neither having any positive application.
However I would like to consider the two as contrasting. The language of the passage, I believe, at least gives occasion to discuss the possibility of that application.
To fall upon the stone willing and voluntarily is to submit or to surrender to that stone.To those who surrender to Jesus Christ, the Bible says they shall be broken. The word means to be "shattered" or "dashed together" also to be crushed. Oh how the sin nature of a man needs to be crushed, dashed and shattered. Nothing of the sin nature is worth remaining. It all needs to be destroyed altogether.
To have the stone fall upon us means that this is something God does to us.In the negative sense it may speak of the lost man who, despite his protests that there is no God or that God has no right to judge him, finds one day that the almighty God does in fact not only have the right, but the authority and the power to do so.
What a tragedy it is when a man lives without God and finds in the end that God is the judge of all men, only this man's judgment will be eternal in hell.
In a positive sense, however, I think of the one who has fallen upon the stone and having so fallen, the stone now falls upon him. In one sense I may fall upon Jesus Christ and surrender my sin nature to Him. I may humble myself and call upon Him and ask Him to cleanse and make me whole. But in another sense, for that cleansing to be effected something else must happen; it cannot stop with my voluntary submission because my sin nature is too quick to pick itself up, dust itself off and take charge again. If I am to be cleansed of sin, Christ must take on the work of "grinding that sin nature to powder."
May the Lord complete His work in me.
May I not be content until my sin nature has been ground under the Stone Jesus Christ and blown away as chaff in the wind of the Holy Ghost.
Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
All of the commentaries in my possession make the "but" in this verse more "and,"
Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; [AND] on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
In doing so they make it that one judgment builds upon the other rather than one being a contrast of the other.
The context seems to support that sort of thinking. In verse 19 the Bible says that the chief priests and scribes perceived that this parable was a judgment against them. In that case, each statement would be negative and neither having any positive application.
However I would like to consider the two as contrasting. The language of the passage, I believe, at least gives occasion to discuss the possibility of that application.
To fall upon the stone willing and voluntarily is to submit or to surrender to that stone.To those who surrender to Jesus Christ, the Bible says they shall be broken. The word means to be "shattered" or "dashed together" also to be crushed. Oh how the sin nature of a man needs to be crushed, dashed and shattered. Nothing of the sin nature is worth remaining. It all needs to be destroyed altogether.
To have the stone fall upon us means that this is something God does to us.In the negative sense it may speak of the lost man who, despite his protests that there is no God or that God has no right to judge him, finds one day that the almighty God does in fact not only have the right, but the authority and the power to do so.
What a tragedy it is when a man lives without God and finds in the end that God is the judge of all men, only this man's judgment will be eternal in hell.
In a positive sense, however, I think of the one who has fallen upon the stone and having so fallen, the stone now falls upon him. In one sense I may fall upon Jesus Christ and surrender my sin nature to Him. I may humble myself and call upon Him and ask Him to cleanse and make me whole. But in another sense, for that cleansing to be effected something else must happen; it cannot stop with my voluntary submission because my sin nature is too quick to pick itself up, dust itself off and take charge again. If I am to be cleansed of sin, Christ must take on the work of "grinding that sin nature to powder."
May the Lord complete His work in me.
May I not be content until my sin nature has been ground under the Stone Jesus Christ and blown away as chaff in the wind of the Holy Ghost.
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