I have come to cast a fire on the earth; and what will I if already it has been kindled?
Jesus has just told His followers to watch and be ready. Now He says why the waiting will be hard. His coming did not bring quiet — it lit a fire. The words raise two questions — what is this fire, and does He want it burning?
Fire here stands for God's holiness meeting man. One writer traces what happened when that holiness came near:
Christ had come to cast fire upon earth. God was about to show His holiness. In fact, its effects were already appearing: the fire was being kindled among men. God showed it in grace, but that changed nothing: grace never means tolerance of sin. Sadly, men could hardly bear to have their sin exposed. The divine Speaker here said, "The world hates me... because I testify about it that its works are evil" (John 7:7). So the fire that would have purified instead consumed.
The fire is not what He came to achieve. It is what His presence did among people who would not have Him. William Kelly draws that line, and shows that the verse takes nothing from the grace of Christ:
The Lord now speaks of what His actual presence did: "I came to cast fire on the earth." This is in no way the purpose of His love, but the effect of His presence. He could not help acting as One who uncovers man's state. Fire is the constant symbol of divine judgment, and this was morally true even then. He came to save; but, if rejected, it was really the kindling of a fire. This in no way contradicts the great truth of His intrinsic grace.
The blaze was not scheduled for some distant day. It had started, and men themselves had struck the match by refusing Him:
Notice what our Lord's coming into the world then meant. Had man been what he ought to be, peace would have been the result. But man saw no beauty in Christ to desire Him, and the effect was hatred — not peace, but a sword. The will of man comes out, and is utterly opposed to God. They would not stand to hear that they were under God's judgment… There is a fire kindled before Christ comes again in judgment to kindle it. He was not then come to judge, but they, by their rejection of Him, kindled the fire of judgment.
The second half of the verse is hard to translate. The ESV reads it as a wish: "would that it were already kindled!" Older translations read it as a question: "what will I, if it is already kindled?" Kelly lists the renderings, notes that one writer ties the fire to Pentecost, and takes the words as a supposition:
The American Revisers give "What do I desire," with the margin "How would I that." The Evangelist gives us here a saying typical of this period of the ministry. Alford would refer it to Pentecost; but it is best taken as a supposition.
Darby rejects two readings: that Christ longed for the fire, and that the fire means the gift of the Spirit:
The baptism with the Holy Spirit took place on the day of Pentecost. Fire is always judgment. Christ does not say He desired the fire to be kindled.
Where does the fire burn first? One writer points to homes, and to the cost of following a rejected Christ:
He was, and He is, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). But the effect of His first coming was not to bring peace. On the contrary, it stirred up opposition… If He was to die the death of the cross, His cause could not be popular while He was away. The world had cast Him out. So households, and even families, would be divided… His cause would not be popular, yet it would still make its way. There would be disciples, and people who confessed Him openly, faithful to Him at any cost.
The fire is not the last word. The same rejection that lit it drove Christ to the cross, and there something broke open:
He came "to send fire on the earth; and what will I if it be already kindled?" The cross brought in what man will never accept. He will not have its reproach. They despised and rejected Him even before the cross; the fire was "already kindled." But the thing that tests man's heart and exposes it sets free the heart of God. When He was baptized with that baptism it opened the flood-gates of God's love.
- Fire is holiness. It is God's holiness exposing what men are; grace displayed it, but grace never tolerates sin.
- Fire is effect. Burning was not the purpose of His love but the result of His presence among people who would not have Him.
- Fire is already lit. Men kindled it themselves by rejecting Him, long before He returns as Judge.
- Fire is not His wish. Commentators read the second line as a supposition, not a longing: He never says He desired the fire.
- Fire opens the flood-gates. The very testing that exposed man's heart set God's heart free — at the cross love flowed out without limit.
But I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how am I straitened until it shall have been accomplished!
These words come right after Jesus speaks of casting fire on the earth. He calls His death a baptism, and He speaks of a pressure that would lift only when that death was over — so what could hold back the Son of God?
"Baptism" here is not water. It pictures being overwhelmed, and Jesus used the same image when the sons of Zebedee asked for the best seats in His kingdom.
The word is a picture of the overwhelming sufferings the Lord Jesus went through, so that He could carry out the purpose for which He came to the earth. He was straitened until that work was done. Luke 12:50; John 12:27. The sons of Zebedee asked to sit on the right and on the left of the Lord in His glory. He at once pointed to the cup He had to drink. He asked if they could drink that cup, and go through the baptism He was to go through. They said they could, not knowing the depths of suffering involved in the question.
What made that baptism His alone was its content: judgment.
The Lord would face judgment — the judgment of God for us — in the "baptism" that awaited Him. It was the lonely agony of the death of the cross, where He bore our sins. For this purpose He had come, and He was "distressed," that is, held inside limits that kept death always in view as the end, as far as earth was concerned. He would bear a judgment such as no one else ever could — the judgment that was due to our sins.
Older translations use the word "straitened" — pressed in on every side. So was there some shortage of love in Him?
Was He straitened in His own heart of love? Every believing heart will know well that He was not. He was straitened because the love in Him was infinite (for "God is love"). It could not flow out in its own proper fullness and full display until the death due to man as a sinner had come in. Redemption had to open the flood-gates, so that the whole tide of divine grace could flow out justly and without hindrance on a lost and ruined world.
The blockage lay in two directions at once — in the people around Him, and in something far deeper.
He Himself was about to go through the deepest suffering. This was because God's character must stand against sin, and sin was not yet judged. God was about to judge it in the person of Christ, who was without sin, yet whom God made sin on the cross. In devoted love, glorifying God, He would be a sacrifice for sin. This was the baptism He was to go through. Until it was done, the Lord, as He says here, was straitened. Whatever His love might be, it could not yet flow out in all its fullness. Barriers stood among men, and beyond them all stood a hindrance on the side of God's glory.
The last word of the verse returns as the cry from the cross. English translations hide the link.
There is a very striking link between these two passages. As far as I know, every English version hides it. Both Gospel writers use the same word, though in different tenses. So I think that if we translated the great word in John 19 (in the original it is only one word) as "It is accomplished," instead of "It is finished," we would gain a good deal… Our Lord, in His perfect humanity, could not but be straitened to the utmost. "How am I straitened!" He says. At length, on Calvary, comes the triumphant cry, "It is accomplished."
The distress had a fixed end.
But on He went through the world in His service of living love, looking ahead to the baptism of His death. His being straitened showed the fullness and strength of His love. Until then He could not let His heart out, for who understood Him?… Divine love was, we may say, pent up and driven back into the heart of God. But all is met… He is not straitened now. The barrier is broken in His death.
The release shaped even what could be taught.
Until the work of redemption was done, the Lord Himself was "straitened." The task of setting out the truth of reconciliation, justification, and so on fell to "a chosen vessel," Paul.
- Baptism — not water, but a picture of being plunged into overwhelming suffering. It was the cup He alone could drink.
- Distress — not reluctance, and no shortage of love. It was infinite love held in, hemmed by limits that kept His death in view.
- Barrier — men would not receive Him, and beyond that stood God's glory, since sin was not yet judged.
- Accomplished — the same word returns as the cry from the cross. The pressure had a fixed end, and Calvary was it.
- Outflow — His death broke the barrier. Now love pours out without limit, and the full message of reconciliation and justification can be told.
Think ye that I have come to give peace in the earth? Nay, I say to you, but rather division
Jesus asks a question that overturns what His hearers expected of Him. If angels announced peace on earth at His birth, why does He now promise division — and what does that mean for a family split over Him?
His hearers did not invent this expectation. At Bethlehem God held something out to the world in a form fitted to win hearts.
When the heavenly host praised God on the day Jesus was born in Bethlehem, as Luke 2:14 records, peace did seem to be presented to the earth in the Person of the Saviour... Could any message of peace have been more wonderfully designed, or better suited to win men's hearts? God presented Himself in Israel as a baby, the perfect expression of human weakness, putting Himself, so to speak, completely within their power.
Later, as Jesus rides into Jerusalem, His disciples praise God with a changed song: "Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" (Luke 19:38). One writer marks how far that is from the angels' words at His birth.
Here we have a striking change... Peace on earth will no doubt be the fruit by and by, since that is according to God's mind. Meanwhile the disciples most fittingly sing, "Peace in heaven." It was not a question of peace on earth now. The reason was clear: the earth was unready. It was about to judge unjustly, and to be judged itself. Jesus was about to be cast out and cut off.
The word Jesus uses means a clean cut, not a mood or a quarrel. One writer compares it with a parallel saying and with an older Latin rendering.
"Division." Compare Matthew 10:34; and the Vulgate here, "separation." The split is between those who stand with Christ and those who do not.
If Christ came in grace, why does His coming produce conflict? One writer puts the fault on man's side — and says the religious man resists hardest.
This deep split is simply the result of Christ's coming into the world. The cause is man in a state of alienation and opposition — above all, the man with religious privileges, who cannot bear to have all his imaginary good sentenced to death... So there is division in families. This is in no way because the grace of Christ in itself promotes discord. It happens because man's evil fights against the truth that shows it up, and man's hatred refuses the love it does not feel it needs.
The same writer adds that Christ's presence tests what is already in the heart, and that conflict follows.
People might have gone on quietly. But Jesus always puts the heart to the test. Where there is no faith, no one knows what a man may do once the Truth — which is what Jesus is — tests him... As far as the world is concerned, evil is in power. Good must hold its ground by faith. It is not that good loves conflict, but that evil opposes good, and so suffering must follow.
The picture of relatives turning on one another is not new. An earlier prophet used it for evil at its worst.
It is practically a quotation from Micah 7. There it stands as the extreme of evil — evil drawn out in its worst forms by the perfect display of good, of God Himself. This was shown in the death of Christ, and in hatred of those faithful to Him. For all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
Does this cancel the peace Christ gives? Scripture also calls Him our peace.
Yet it is written of Him, "He has made peace," and, "He is our peace." All who are taught of God know well that these statements do not contradict each other.
The denial in this verse is dated, not permanent. What Jesus rules out now, He promises for a coming day.
There is a time coming when Christ will be the Prince of peace. He has declared plainly that this is not the present time... This is the time when bringing in the light stirs up the passions of men. They go on raging until Christ's second coming puts them down.
- Offered — At Bethlehem God held peace out to the earth in the most winning form possible: Himself, as a baby.
- Refused — Man would not have Him. So the disciples sing of peace in heaven, not peace on earth.
- Divided — What remains on earth is separation. The line falls between those who stand with Christ and those who do not, and it runs through families.
- Explained — Grace does not create discord; it exposes evil. Jesus tests every heart, and evil fights the light that shows it up.
- Restored — The denial is only for now. He is still the Prince of Peace, and His return will put down the raging His first coming stirred up.
for from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided; three shall be divided against two, and two against three
Jesus has just said that He did not come to bring peace on earth. Now He counts heads inside a single house: five people, split three against two. The words raise a hard question — why should the coming of God's own love break up a family?
So what happened to the peace announced at His birth?
Angels had announced at His birth, "on earth peace" (Luke 2:14). Yet mankind refused this offered peace when they rejected Christ, and peace will not come now until the millennial kingdom. Meanwhile there is a sharp and solemn division between those who receive Him and those who do not. This division would not only be in nations or cities. It would be in families, with the closest relatives divided against each other. We know this will continue through all this day of grace.
The word Jesus uses marks a line drawn through a household.
"Division." Compare Matthew 10:34. The Latin Vulgate translates it "separation" here. The cleavage is between those who stand with Christ and those who do not.
Households that had lived quietly together turn on each other. Christ is the test that brings it out.
Man being what he is, they must not be surprised if Christ's presence produced conflict and opposition, and stirred men up into jealousies and envies, hatred and enmity. All these things came to light in people where no one had seen them before. People might have gone on quietly. But Jesus always puts the heart to the test. Jesus is the Truth, and if there is no faith, no one knows what a man may do once the Truth puts him to the proof... As far as the world is concerned, evil is in power. So good has to hold its ground by faith, in conflict with evil and rising above it. It is not that good loves conflict, but that evil will oppose what is good, and so there must be suffering.
The division is real. So where does the fault lie?
So division comes into families. It is in no way because the grace of Christ itself promotes discord. It is because man's evil fights against the truth that shows it up, and man's hatred refuses the love it does not feel it needs.
The next verse names the five.
And if five in one house are divided (Luke 12:52-53), they are father and mother and son and daughter and daughter-in-law.
These are the closest ties of all. An older prophecy described the same thing.
The nearest relationships, sex, age, or youth, made no difference. Grace works freely, according to the sovereign will of God. In the same way, man's hatred spares no one, and shows up in the most unlikely places. The Lord is pointing back to the prophecy of Micah, who describes the worst evil of the last days in similar terms (Micah 7:6). It is solemn to find, then, that the evil had already come before the days the prophet spoke of arrive. The presence of Divine love in the person of Jesus provokes it.
The split is rarely even. The believing member of a family usually carries the weight of it.
The nearer the relationship, the deeper the grievance. The will of man comes out, in complete opposition to God. They refused to hear that they were under God's judgment. But the division that grace brings has this strange mark. In a family, the one who is converted usually becomes, at once, the slave of the rest. Such cases turn nature itself upside down. How often a husband or parent loses his authority this way!
One writer looked back on what he learned in a divided house.
I learned that if there was division in the house (Luke 12:52; John 14:21), Christ came into the heart in sweetest sympathy and comfort... I learned to praise that One through it all. I learned, too, that nearness to the Lord involves Satan's rage and our Father's discipline, and that we should not go to the world for shelter. Our resource is in God!
- Peace offered. The angels announced peace at His birth. Mankind refused it by rejecting Him, so peace on earth waits for His reign.
- Peace refused, division follows. "Division" here means separation — a line between those who stand with Christ and those who do not.
- The cause is man, not grace. Christ's presence does not create discord. It tests hearts, and man's evil fights the truth that exposes it.
- The line runs through the house. Father, mother, son, daughter, daughter-in-law. The closest ties feel it most, just as Micah described the worst of days.
- The believer pays, and is met. The converted one often becomes the slave of the rest. Christ comes into the heart with sympathy, and God, not the world, is the shelter.
father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against mother; a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
Jesus has just spoken of the fire He came to bring and the baptism He must undergo. Now He says what His coming will do inside ordinary homes. He names pairs: father and son, mother and daughter, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. That raises the hardest question here. How can the Prince of Peace say that His own arrival splits a family in two?
The division grows out of what comes just before it — His death.
He was, and He is, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). But the effect of His first coming was not to bring peace. On the contrary, it stirred up opposition… He must die; for until then He could not bring about all that He desired. If He was to die on the cross, then during His absence His cause could not be popular in a world that had cast Him out. So households, and even families, would split. Their members would oppose one another in the strongest and, we may say, the bitterest way.
Christ did not come to bring discord. He gave this warning in advance.
The Lord has warned us beforehand that the effect of His coming and His testimony — not its object — would be strife, dividing even the nearest and most precious natural relationships.
The word behind the division means more than a family quarrel.
"Division." Compare Matthew 10:34, and the old Latin version here, "separation." The split is between those who stand with Christ and those who do not.
Jesus names the pairs in both directions: older against younger, and younger against older. The prophet Micah drew the same picture of the worst of times.
The nearest relationships, whether man or woman, old or young, made no difference. Grace works freely, according to the sovereign will of God. In the same way man's hatred spares no one, and shows up in the most unlikely places. The Lord is alluding to the prophecy of Micah, who describes in similar terms the worst evil of the last days (Micah 7:6). It is solemn to find, then, that the evil had already come before the days the prophet spoke of. And the presence of divine love in the person of Jesus provokes it. This could not happen if men were not thoroughly bad. But Jesus is the Truth, and so He brings everything to a head.
It seems backwards that love at home should turn to hostility. But each person in the house has to decide about Christ Himself.
Peace on earth was not the word now, but hostility in the closest relationships. Owning the Lord is intolerable to man. The closer the relationship, the greater the hostility. But Christ came as a test of everything. His presence, and the true confession of Him, awakened hostility. So the heart of His servant must take Him, the new divine thing, instead of everything… Christ tests the heart as well as the world.
Something has to give once Christ becomes the one a person lives for.
The powerful ties of family are not enough to hold a home together, once Christ becomes the object of anyone in it. A person's enemies will be those of his own household. And this becomes the test of being wholly for Him.
The same strain shows up in homes today.
How painful it is to have to live in a divided family! The Lord Jesus warns His disciples about this. He says: "For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household" (Matthew 10:35-36). How many tensions arise when one member of a family turns to the Lord and the others oppose it! There is a lack of understanding, sometimes open acts of hostility, and in some countries even persecution.
Peace on earth is not cancelled. Its date has moved.
Peace on earth is put off until He appears in glory. Meanwhile the ground of this peace is laid in divine righteousness, by the blood of the cross. The same blood lays the ground for peace in heaven, in the richest way, and there we needed it most (Colossians 1:19-20).
- Rejection — the world cast Him out, so it will not welcome His cause.
- Effect — strife is the result of His coming, not its object; He came in grace, and man's heart supplied the hostility.
- Split — "division" means separation: a line between those who stand with Christ and those who do not. It cuts through the closest ties.
- Test — the closer the tie, the fiercer the resistance. Christ tests the heart as well as the world.
- Postponement — peace on earth waits until He appears in glory. Its ground is already laid in the blood of the cross.