Woe to thee, Chorazin! woe to thee, Bethsaida! for if the works of power which have taken place in you had taken place in Tyre and Sidon, they had long ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.
Jesus is sending seventy men ahead of Him, and He first names two towns that had seen His mighty works and had not repented. Why does He say two notorious Gentile cities would have done better, and why did those cities never see the same evidence?
Jesus had already sent out twelve disciples in chapter 9. This second sending, found only in Luke, carries a different weight.
The mission of the seventy comes before us next, and only Luke records it. It has a solemn and final character, with an urgency beyond that of the twelve in chapter 9. It is an errand of grace, since the One who sent them had a heart that longed over a great harvest of blessing. But it carries a last warning with it, and He pronounces woes here on the cities where He had worked in vain.
The charge against these towns is not lawbreaking. It is something worse.
With what deep and awful solemnity the word "Woe!" falls on the ear, coming from the lips of the Son of God. It is the woe that follows rejected grace. It is no longer only a question of a broken law. It is no longer only ordinances dishonoured and abused, God-given institutions shamefully corrupted, prophets and wise men rejected and stoned.
The sentence is real, but it comes from a heart that had spent itself on these towns.
The Lord was not at all unfeeling about His rejection. He felt it deeply, though in a spirit of grace… He had shown His power in blessings and in testimony. It had all been in vain. He had reproached them for the hardness of their heart. He had spent Himself for them, but their hearts felt nothing. Neither Tyre nor Sidon, neither Sodom nor Gomorrah would have stayed unmoved in the same circumstances. They would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
The two names were not picked at random. Both stood for wickedness, and that is what makes the comparison bite.
Tyre and Sidon were nothing like Jerusalem. They were known everywhere for their wickedness. The Lord picks them out as such when He says… He holds them up as two of the vilest cities He could have named.
Why then did those mighty works not happen in Tyre and Sidon, cities outside Israel? One writer points to the errand Jesus was on.
Why then did He not do these works in Tyre and Sidon? Because He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and would give them every opportunity to repent.
Judgment is not one flat sentence for everyone. God weighs guilt against the light He gave.
No doubt Tyre and Sidon will not be condemned for not seeing what they could not see: no one believes they will. But they are responsible for the light they had. There is a "more tolerable" judgment, "few stripes" instead of "many."
Many assume that the people in danger are the ones who never heard.
This is a solemn principle, far too easily and too often forgotten. People tend to pity those in distant lands who have never heard. It is right for those who rejoice in the Lord to feel for people who lack Him. But there is no greater delusion than to think that at the judgment people will be better off in England than in central Asia… Israel did have its privileges, no doubt. But privileges despised or misused only bring a deeper ruin on those who reject or twist them.
The warning does not stop with those two towns.
But does this not speak to people today who hear the gospel and have every privilege? It certainly does… The higher the place of privilege, the deeper must be the fall of those who are untrue. They have only the name of Christ, without the reality.
- Privilege given. Chorazin and Bethsaida saw the works of power that Tyre and Sidon never saw. They had the clearest possible evidence.
- Privilege refused. What follows is not law broken but grace refused. That is what this "woe" answers.
- Privilege felt. This sentence is not cold. It comes from One who had spent Himself on these towns and felt their hardness.
- Privilege measured. God condemns no one for light they never had. He judges by what each person received, so some face a "more tolerable" day than others.
- Privilege now. The same scale still runs today. The higher the privilege, the heavier the fall for those who hold Christ's name without the reality.
But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment than for you.
Just before this, the Lord sent out seventy messengers with a warning for any town that refused them. He then names Chorazin and Bethsaida, two towns that watched Him work, and says the pagan cities Tyre and Sidon will fare better at the judgment.
The Lord told the seventy to shake the dust off their feet at a town that refused them. One writer names the one thing that act could not remove.
That city might reject them. They would then shake off all connection with it, even the very dust collected there by their feet. But there was something those who rejected the messengers could not shake off — their responsibility. The kingdom of God had come near, and they had cared nothing about it. They might give themselves to carelessness, indifference, and scoffing, but a day of reckoning must come.
The writers below quote "more tolerable," an older wording of "more bearable." Scripture speaks elsewhere of a servant beaten with many stripes and another with few. One writer shows how far that difference goes.
It will be "more tolerable" for some in the day of judgement than for others. Not that the place or duration of punishment varies for any of the lost. Eternity in the lake of fire is the portion of all who die in their sins. Yet the Saviour speaks of "few stripes" and "many stripes," showing degrees of severity in the divine inflictions.
That grading is what makes the judgment fair.
The Gentile will not be judged on the same ground as the Jew, and the Jew not on the same ground as the person who is a Christian in name only. Each will be dealt with on his own distinct ground and according to his light and privilege... All are not huddled together carelessly, as though they were all on one common ground. Instead, God makes the most exact distinctions. No one will ever be condemned for despising and refusing advantages that were never within his reach.
The obvious objection is that the pagan cities never got their chance. One writer answers it from the Lord's own mission.
He says that if Tyre and Sidon, cities outside Israel, had seen the mighty works He did in Chorazin and Bethsaida, those cities would have repented in sackcloth and ashes long before. Why then did He not do these works there? Because He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and would give them every opportunity to repent.
Another writer measures that repentance against Nineveh, the city spared after Jonah preached there.
The comparison shows that the Lord does not say Tyre and Sidon could have been brought to God and saved in that way. He does say they would at least have been moved and humbled, like Nineveh, by a visit from God that the cities of Israel met with hard indifference.
Both cities had already fallen in history. The verse points past that ruin to something later.
God had already judged Tyre and Sidon; Nebuchadnezzar, for instance, destroyed them. But God has not finished with them. Temporal judgments are not eternal ones. They will have to appear before the Great White Throne. It is then that it will be more tolerable for them. They were an immoral people. But their guilt was not as great as the guilt of those who rejected the testimony of Christ. Their punishment will not be as great either.
The principle does not stay in Galilee. It presses hardest where the message is easiest to hear.
This is a solemn principle much too easily and too often forgotten. People are apt to pity the heathen and to think of distant lands... there cannot be a greater mistake than to think that, when the judgment comes, people will be better off simply for living in England instead of Tartary... Israel was certainly privileged. But privileges despised or misused bring only deeper ruin on those who reject or twist them.
- Light — What a town saw sets what it owes. Chorazin and Bethsaida watched His works of power. Tyre and Sidon never did, and the verdict follows that difference.
- Refusal — Turning away the seventy was not a small local snub. The messengers could shake the dust from their feet; the town could not shake off its responsibility.
- Degrees — "More bearable" is real. Writers point to "few stripes" and "many stripes" as different levels of severity. Fereday adds that the place and duration are the same for all who die in their sins.
- Fairness — God condemns no one for refusing light that was never within reach. Tyre and Sidon answer for what they had, not for what they never saw.
- Reversal — The cities that saw the most end up worse off than the pagans. Despised privilege does not shrink the account. It deepens it, in any place where the message is easy to hear today.
And *thou*, Capernaum, who hast been raised up to heaven, shalt be brought down even to hades.
Jesus has just sent seventy messengers ahead of Him. Before the chapter turns to their joyful return, He stops to pass sentence on the towns where He had lived and worked. Capernaum gets the sharpest word of all. Why should the place that saw the most of Him sink the lowest?
The judgment here is not a prediction passed on from someone else. The Lord speaks it Himself, over the ground He is leaving.
On some of these towns — the scene of His work, which He was now leaving — He passes sentence Himself. In declaring the distinct judgment of each place, He shows His title, His power and His righteous judgment. Here is divine knowledge, competence and title. Here is the announcement of the judgment of God, known to Him before the time arrives — and yet all this done as a Servant! Note, too, that the Lord never says "Woe" at the beginning of His course.
The town had no rank of its own. Its height came from the One who walked its streets. The quotations here follow an older wording that reads this line as a statement, "exalted to heaven," rather than as a question.
It is remarkable to find that Capernaum was the very place which saw the first goings out of His wonder-working power, and His words too — the teaching of the great servant-prophet in this world. That is what made Capernaum's great exaltation. It was lifted up to heaven — how? Because it saw His mightiest works. It was allowed to see the divine display of power in the words as well as in the works of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so it was privileged.
Older English Bibles print "hell" in this verse. One writer explains what the word behind it means, and what it does not mean.
We should drop our English word "hell" here and put "hades," meaning the unseen, in its place. People have tried to fix the location of hades. It is impossible to do so. Hades is a state, not a place. It is the condition of all people, good and bad, after death and before the resurrection. For believers, hades is to be with Christ; for unbelievers, hades is to be in torment.
The sentence fell on the place itself, and not only on the people who lived there.
Capernaum did not repent at the preaching of Jesus. Its unbelieving people must each answer for themselves in a day of judgment still to come. And this, the Lord's own city in Galilee, has been so fully overthrown that no one can identify its site with certainty.
Many assume that living close to the light makes them safer than those far from it.
This is a solemn principle far too easily and too often forgotten. People are apt to pity the heathen and to think of distant lands... there cannot be a greater delusion than to think that, when the judgment comes, people, considered simply as people, will be better off in England than in Tartary... Israel was indeed privileged. But privileges despised or misused only bring a deeper ruin on those who reject or twist them.
Judgment is not one flat sentence handed to everyone alike.
Capernaum, where He had mainly lived, was exalted to heaven in the greatness of this privilege, and so would be brought down to the desolation of hades. If the mighty works done there had been done in Sodom, the Lord says it would have remained to this day. Here the Lord must be referring to eternal judgment, for Sodom was totally destroyed and so already received a complete judgment in time. It will be more bearable for Sodom in the day of judgment than for Capernaum. Luke 12:47-48 shows that though all unbelievers will be sent to hell, there will still be different degrees of punishment for them, depending on the measure of responsibility.
Writers do not leave the verse in ancient Galilee. They turn it round on anyone living where the message of Christ is easy to reach.
Privileges not valued bring the severest judgment from God. How far does this principle apply to our favoured land?
- Lifted by Presence. Capernaum's height was not its own. It came from Christ living, teaching and working miracles there.
- Lifted means owing. The same presence that raised the town also raised what it owed. Privileges despised bring a deeper ruin than privileges never given.
- Lifted, then let down. The One who gave the privilege passes the sentence Himself, and He never said "Woe" at the start of His work.
- Down to Hades. The word means the unseen: the state of the dead before resurrection. For believers that is to be with Christ, for unbelievers it is torment. The town's ruin was so complete that no one can name its site with certainty.
- Weighed, not lumped together. Sodom will fare better than Capernaum. God weighs judgment by responsibility, so the question falls back on everyone who lives near the light.