Luke 11:50–51

They built the tombs of the prophets. This sounded good and holy. What could look better than honouring the prophets and sufferers of old by building their tombs? It was really the spirit of the world. First, they proved whose successors they were — not the martyrs' but their murderers'. It seemed the opposite of what their fathers had done. Yet the same love of the world was at work. It killed the martyrs back then, and now it led men to build their tombs, to make religious capital out of this pious honour.

"The wisdom of God," the Lord had said. Here only in the New Testament is wisdom said to speak. The title fitted the moment. Wisdom speaks in the Old Testament (Proverbs 8) to warn men, so that the simple would understand wisdom and the foolish would gain an understanding heart. Wisdom speaks in the New Testament (Luke 11:49) to say that warning fools is now hopeless, and that the coming judgment is therefore certain.

Scripture often mentions the "foundation of the world" as the far border-line of the past. Human history is counted "from" that point (Matthew 13:35; Matthew 25:34; Luke 11:50; Hebrews 4:3; Revelation 13:8).

Then He announced a principle that most people find unacceptable. They either ignore it or fight it hard. That principle is that the blood of all the prophets of the past would be required of the present generation; to leave no doubt, He speaks of the blood of Abel, whom Cain killed, and down to Zechariah, who was killed while doing his priestly service for God (2 Chronicles 24:20-21). The reason is that this generation kept the same attitude of refusal towards the testimony of God. They soon proved it by murdering the Lord Jesus, and various apostles later.

All the blood which had been shed since the blood of righteous Abel had to be required of that generation. God had not required it before. He had enlightened them by His law, stirred them up by His prophets, warned them through discipline, and appealed to their whole moral being by sending His Son. The sins of the fathers should have warned the children to avoid the same offences. The children sinned after them, so they sinned in the light. But they persisted… This still leaves each of their fathers facing the consequences of his own sin at the judgment of the dead. But the nation — the system as a whole, the public object of God's government in the world — has been judged.

The true force is "this (Christ-rejecting, unbelieving) generation of Israel." It does not mean only the people alive then. It means all who bore the same moral fruits as those who refused the Messiah… Israel stood in the place of witness for God. So they suffered for despising His last testimony to them in Christ, and God required of them all the righteous blood shed from the beginning onwards. The same principle applies to Babylon in Revelation: "in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth."

In the last days there will be a violent outbreak against the witnesses of Jesus. Their blood will be shed like water. The persecution will be all the more guilty because men will have known about it beforehand. They will have admitted the guilt of those who did it, and yet they will fall into the same rut themselves. Sadly, unbelief is most of all blind to itself.

2 Chronicles is the last book in the Hebrew Bible. So this would have amounted to saying: the blood of all the martyrs in your history, from Genesis to 2 Chronicles, will be required of this generation. We would say, from Genesis to Revelation, without even settling the date of that last book. The martyrs from Genesis to Chronicles were all the martyrs killed by Jewish hatred of the truth. The Lord does not date their martyrdom by naming this one the last of the martyrs.

This probably refers to Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, who was killed in this way by order of the king (2 Chronicles 24:20-22). In one of those places "son" may mean "grandson." The book of Chronicles closes the Hebrew Bible, so the murder of this righteous man may well be counted the last, as Abel's was the first.

In this case the martyr seems to have been doing actual priestly service. He was the grandson of Iddo, of the priestly family (Zechariah 1:1; Nehemiah 12:1-4), and they killed him between the temple and the altar. This shows the cold-blooded ruthlessness of his attackers. They had no regard for God's glory symbolised in the temple and the altar.

All the blood which had been shed since the blood of righteous Abel had to be required of that generation. God had not required it before. He had enlightened them by His law, stirred them up by His prophets, warned them by chastisements, and appealed to their whole moral being by sending His Son. The very sins of the fathers should have warned their children to avoid the same offences. Coming after those sins, the children's offences were committed in the light. But they persisted in them, and so heaped up wrath for the day of judgment.

They proved that they were the successors of those who killed them — not the successors of the martyrs, but of their murderers. It seemed the opposite of what their fathers had done. Yet it was the same love of the world. That love killed the martyrs in that day, and now led men to build their tombs to make religious capital out of this pious honour. They would gladly have the halo surrounding those men of God shine on themselves.

It affirms firmly when a matter might seem to be in doubt. Or it repeats something as a certainty that cannot fail, as in Luke 11:51.

That principle is that the blood of all the prophets of the past would be required of the present generation... The reason is simply that this generation He spoke to kept the same attitude of refusal towards the testimony of God, which they very soon proved in the murder of the Lord Jesus and of various apostles later.

In the sight of God, one generation inherits all the iniquity that the generations before it completed. That iniquity ought to warn their conscience... If Christians are not fully separated from Babylon, they inherit the iniquity of the earlier times. They join themselves with it, and their conscience learns nothing from it. When man has used up one principle, God sets another before him to work on his conscience. If he rejects that too, he is so much the more guilty.