And it came to pass afterwards he went into a city called Nain, and many of his disciples and a great crowd went with him.
Jesus has just healed a Gentile officer's servant. Now He walks to a small town called Nain with His disciples and a large crowd, and at its gate a funeral is coming out.
The earlier healing came in answer to a request. What follows comes with no request at all, and reaches past sickness.
The power in which the grace of Christ acted was not limited to sickness, even sickness as severe as leprosy or paralysis. It was not limited to Israel either: faith drew it out in full strength when a Gentile asked. Here no one asks at all. We see that power ruling over the ruin death makes, and full of tenderness toward a sorrow that had no other hope.
Commentators differ on the timing. Some place it on the day after He healed the centurion's servant. Others say only that it happened soon afterwards.
The town itself was small and easy to overlook.
The story takes place in a small, unimportant village in the tribal land of Issachar. People today call it Nein. It lies six miles south-east of Nazareth, some way south of Capernaum, and north of modern Jenin. Earlier commentators called it a dirty little place, which had probably changed little in two thousand years. It stands out in history as the site of the Lord's first recorded raising of a person from among the dead. It was there that the Lord of glory chose to come.
The name itself becomes part of the lesson:
Nain means "pleasant." That is what the world was as God made it, and what it still seems to be to anyone who looks at it with only natural eyes. But at its gate a dead man is being carried out. Death is still the way out of this world, and the shadow over it.
Two crowds were heading for the same gate. The one walking with Jesus knew nothing about the other.
We meet two processions here. One is full of lively talk and discussion. The other has the seriousness that suits a funeral. A remarkable teacher leads the first, with His travelling school of learners. With them comes a crowd of curious people, hoping to catch some of the teacher's words, or perhaps just a glimpse of Him. The description "a great crowd" shows just how popular He was at this time. The crowd attending the Lord was clearly unaware of the death that had taken place in Nain.
What happens next begins in silence.
Until then, no one had begged the Lord on her behalf. No one with her had come to Him to catch His attention. No one explained the painful situation. Nor did she herself speak. "When the Lord," we read, "saw her, He had compassion on her." All was known to Him. He was not indifferent to that widow's bereavement.
He came with a purpose no one there had asked for:
He came, uninvited, in the freedom of His own love, to meet man in his complete ruin and to replace mourning with joy beyond words.
What He does next joins power and tenderness in one act:
This next scene is found only in Luke. The Lord does not only heal. With a grace and majesty entirely His own, He brings life to the dead, and He does it with remarkable consideration for human sorrow and affection. By His own life-giving power He made the dead live. But He also saw in the man they were carrying out to burial the only son of his widowed mother. So He stopped the stretcher that carried the body, told the dead man to get up, and gave him back to his mother. No picture could fit the spirit and aim of this Gospel better.
- Sequence. The centurion's servant showed His power over sickness. Nain shows that same power reaching past sickness to death.
- Setting. Nain was a poor, unimportant village whose name means "pleasant." Yet a funeral was coming out of its gate.
- Company. He arrived with His disciples and a great crowd, and none of them knew what was waiting at the gate.
- Initiative. No one asked, no one spoke for her, and the widow said nothing. He came uninvited, moved by His own love.
- Character. Only Luke records it. He shows the Lord giving life to the dead, and caring about the sorrow of the one left behind.
And as he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was carried out, the only son of his mother, and she a widow, and a very considerable crowd of the city [was] with her.
Two crowds met at the gate of a town called Nain: one followed a teacher, the other followed a coffin — an only son, with his widowed mother behind him. So what does the Lord of life do when no one has asked Him for anything?
The meeting was not arranged by anyone. One writer draws attention to the direction each group was moving.
The next day after He healed the centurion's servant, or soon after, the Lord went to a city called Nain, a good way south of Capernaum. His disciples went with Him, and a large crowd. As they came near the gate, another large crowd met them, coming out. The Lord of Life was entering in. One in death was being carried out to burial — the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.
The name of the town matters. It means "pleasant," and the corpse is being carried through its gate.
Nain means "pleasant." That is what the world was as God made it, and what it still seems to be to the natural man. But at its gate they are carrying out a dead man. Death is still the way out of the world, as it is the shadow over it. The widowed mother, whose only son he is, and the sympathetic crowd behind her show how many ways death touches those left alive.
Only Luke tells this story, and he adds two details that fill out the picture.
Two touches are very typical of Luke, and the whole scene is found only in his Gospel: he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. Here is the heart of a man moved by such desolate circumstances, and open to the feelings that fitted such a case. The Lord of glory was willing to feel these things, and to bring them out by the Holy Spirit. "And a considerable crowd from the town was with her." Even man showed his sympathy.
Behind the grief lay a practical ruin that the first readers would have felt at once.
She cuts a lonely figure, with nothing left but happy memories of her now dead son's childhood. Without a male protector she would be in very real trouble. She was desolate, beyond comfort, and taken up with her sorrow. All her hopes had been in him, and now they were dashed. Her husband's family line had also come to an end. In the first century there was no welfare, no one to support her, and little chance of work. She had lost everything and was without hope.
The Greek word behind "only son" is the same one used of Christ as the only-begotten Son, and Luke uses it three times.
Luke records three miracles of the Lord, each of which involved an only child. In each case, the children were either dead or near to death. We are reminded of the only-begotten Isaac on the altar of sacrifice. It shows the Lord's tenderness to people who have lost what was precious and irreplaceable. He understood; He was the ultimate 'only-begotten'.
No one in either crowd said a word to Him about the widow.
But there was no appeal from the widow of Nain. Her sorrows, her struggles and her desolation are never described. We only see her circumstances. We gather them from that one moving phrase, "the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." But this one phrase is enough. This poor widow made no appeal to Christ. No — her hopeless sorrow, her total loss, was her appeal. The Lord saw her, judged as no other could the depth of her need, and so, moved by His own heart, He went to her relief.
One writer reads the scene as a picture on a larger scale.
In the son of the widow of Nain we see a picture of the great grace and power of the Son of God. He is able to bring the nation Israel out of death into life. That is what still lies ahead for that desolate nation, when she is fully restored after centuries of death and decay. When the Lord receives Israel again, it will be like "life from the dead" (Rom. 11:15).
- Gate. In a town whose name means "pleasant," death is still the way out — the funeral meets the Lord at the exit.
- Loss. A widow burying an only son had lost her protector, her support and her family line, with no hope left.
- Only. Luke tells of three only children who were dead or dying, and Christ Himself is the ultimate "only-begotten" — He knows what such a loss means.
- Unasked. No one asked Him for anything. Her hopeless sorrow was the appeal, and He moved to help her from His own heart.
- Hope. Read on a larger scale, the raising pictures a desolate nation brought back one day — "life from the dead."
And the Lord, seeing her, was moved with compassion for her, and said to her, Weep not;
A funeral was leaving the town of Nain as Jesus arrived, and the dead man was a widow's only son. Nobody asked Him for anything, yet He stopped, and the first thing recorded of Him is not power but pity.
The verse turns on what He saw, not on what He was asked.
But there was no appeal from the widow of Nain. Her sorrows, struggles and loneliness are never described. Only her circumstances show them. We gather them from that one moving phrase, "the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." But this one phrase is enough... We have said that this poor widow made no appeal to Christ. No — her hopeless sorrow, her total bereavement, was her appeal. The Lord saw her, weighed as no other could the depth of her need, and so, moved by His own heart, He went to her relief.
He could have raised the son first and let her tears stop on their own. He did it the other way round.
How beautiful is the way the Lord takes to heal her broken heart. Moved with compassion, He first dries her tears, and then removes the cause of her sorrow. If we had the power, we would probably have raised the dead first, and then said to the woman, "Weep no more." But Jesus takes another way. It is a better way, and it makes the story so full of comfort for us all... So the woman would have been able to say, "In my great sorrow He came so near to me that He wiped away my tears. He not only took me out of my sorrowful circumstances, but He walked beside me in them." He shows by His compassion and sympathy that He can wipe away our tears before He raises our dead. This suits our case. Jesus has gone away, and He does not yet raise our loved ones when they are taken from us. But He speaks comfort to our broken hearts and dries our tears. We wait for the day when He will raise those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
Anyone else could tell her to stop crying and change nothing.
He came to banish the tears which sin and misery had brought into the world. I do not say that He came not to weep Himself; for, in banishing tears, He must weep as none other wept. But to her He would say in His gracious power, "Do not weep." Empty words, had they not been His words, or come from any other mouth! What a difference it makes who says it!
In this scene one writer sees God Himself, standing as a man beside her grief.
Now in the seventh chapter of Luke the Lord fully takes the divine place... Here He goes further in the display of divine power and goodness. "When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her." That was His first thought. He spoke first to the bereaved widow. This was God too, though as a man close to her sorrow. But divine power was there as well; and a word from Him woke to conscious life the young man they were about to bury. But power — the fullest, divine power — did not blot out goodness, and cannot. God uses power, but He is love. He delivered him to his mother.
Others in Scripture raised the dead too, but not in this way.
"Do not weep!" the word of His sympathy; "Arise," the word of His power... Elijah raised the son of a widow, but he had to humble himself and cry to the Lord. Elisha also raised the son of the Shunammite, but only after stretching himself over the child. But the Lord commands, and death has to release its prey at the one word.
The order here says something about how God gives.
The heart of Jesus was arrested, and then He stopped the stretcher carrying the dead young man. His compassions always went before His mercies. People commonly say that the heart moves the hand. Do you not value a blessing that comes to you in that way? Salvation came pouring out from the heart of Christ.
- Seen — no one spoke for her. Her loss was the appeal, and He saw it.
- Felt — compassion moved first. His heart went before His hand, so the blessing came from who He is, not from what she asked.
- Spoken — from any other mouth, "Do not weep" would be empty. He came to banish the tears that sin and misery brought into the world.
- Raised — the same voice that comforted the mother then commanded the dead. Elijah and Elisha had to plead and stretch themselves out; He speaks once.
- Restored — full divine power never cancels goodness; He gave the son back to his mother.
and coming up he touched the bier, and the bearers stopped. And he said, Youth, I say to thee, Wake up.
Outside the gate of Nain a funeral procession meets Jesus. No one asks Him for anything. He stops the open coffin with His hand and speaks to a dead man. Two things carry the verse: the touch that should have defiled Him, and the word that needed no other name behind it.
Under the law of Moses, contact with a dead body made a person unclean. Christ touched the open coffin anyway.
He touched the bier on which the widow's dead son lay. Yet Numbers 19 states, "And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean." But seen from the spiritual viewpoint, the Lord Jesus was totally separate from death — that is, from sin and its consequences.
The contact runs the opposite way from what the law expects.
Jesus is the only One who was ever here who could not be defiled. Pollution did not get into Him through the touch. Instead, power went out of Him to dismiss the power of death and blot out the stain.
Others in Scripture have raised the dead, but never like this.
When our Lord performed miracles, He called on no name as His authority. By contrast, when the Apostle Peter cured the lame beggar at the Beautiful gate of the temple, he said, "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." He took pains to tell the people that he had not done the miracle by his own power, but in "His name… through faith in His name." As they carried the young man of Nain to his burial, our Lord stopped the procession, saying, "Young man, I say to you, arise." He acted as a Divine Person.
The same contrast holds with the prophets before Him, who had to labour and pray for such a result.
Elijah raised the son of a widow, but he had to humble himself and cry to the Lord. Elisha also raised the son of the Shunammite, but only after stretching himself over the child. But the Lord commands, and death has to release its prey at a single word.
Strip the sentence of the Speaker and it is absurd — a man addressing a body.
"And He said, Young man, I say to you, Wake up." If they had not been His words — if they had come from any other mouth — they would have been empty. What a difference it makes who says it! That is what people forget when they think of Christ… God was there. God was with that Man in His own power. For what is more characteristic of God than raising the dead? It was even more wonderful than creation.
(Kelly quotes an older translation; where it reads "wake up", the ESV reads "arise".)
He speaks to the mother before He speaks to her son.
When the Lord saw the grief-stricken woman, "He had compassion on her," and banished her tears with His compassionate words, "Weep not." The words were effective. They were not the formal utterance of some shallow, unfeeling mortal. They came from the lips and heart of the One who Himself wept at the grave of Lazarus… He was able not only to comfort in the very presence of trouble, but to deliver out of it.
His touch stops the funeral, and the raising gives Him every claim on the young man.
Power and authority were in Him as well as compassion. He came and touched the bier, and the funeral procession stood still, stopped on its march to the grave… He might have claimed the life that He had restored; He might have said to him, "Follow Me," but He did not. He knew that the lad was his mother's only support and hope, and He gave him back to her.
What happened at that coffin shows how anyone comes to life.
"An hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live." How can this be? Can a dead person hear? In a natural sense it is a contradiction in terms. Yet the testimony of Scripture is that Lazarus, and the widow's son, and Jairus' daughter heard that voice. So it is with dead souls… The Speaker is the Son of God.
- Compassion first. He sees the mother and tells her not to weep. Comfort comes in the trouble, then deliverance out of it.
- The touch. Under the law, contact with the dead defiled everyone. Here the power goes the other way, because He was separate from death.
- The command. Peter healed in another's name. The prophets prayed and stretched themselves over the dead. Christ commands, and death lets go.
- The Speaker. From any other mouth the words are empty. Raising the dead is what marks out God — more wonderful even than creation.
- The gift. He raised the young man and handed him back to his mother, claiming nothing for Himself. That same voice still calls the spiritually dead to live.
And the dead sat up and began to speak; and he gave him to his mother.
At the gate of the town of Nain a funeral halts, and a young man on his way to burial sits up and starts talking. The verse ends with a tender act: the Lord hands the living son back to his widowed mother. What does He do with the lives He restores?
One writer walks through the scene step by step, and starts by insisting the man was truly alive.
Life had returned to the frame, and he began to speak. This was not a body twitching from an electric shock; it was a living man. But, not content with displaying power, the Lord thought of the widow, for He delivered the son to his mother. He saw her. He had compassion on her. He comforted her. He touched the frame carrying the body. He told the young man to get up. He gave him to his mother.
Anyone can speak to a corpse. The question is who is speaking. One writer sees in this act the clearest mark of God at work, because it comes after the ruin has set in.
God was there; God was with that Man in His own power: for what is more characteristic of God than raising the dead? It was even more amazing than creation. That God should create is, so to speak, natural. But God raises the dead to life again after what He created has fallen into ruin. He shows His all-encompassing power to recover to the very end. Such a work does assume man's weakness and evil, and the enemy's short-lived success — yet it also shows God above every hostile power in the creature… "And Jesus gave him to his mother." If He was a man who knew grief, He was also a man who knew the power of sympathy. He knew how to comfort a heart in mourning.
Luke does not record a word the young man said. One writer takes the sound itself as the proof, and reads the young man's earlier state as a picture of anyone dead in sin.
His hopeless condition exactly matched our own spiritual condition when we were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1). But when he is awakened from death, he speaks. No record is given of what he said, but it was audible evidence that he was alive. When we have trusted the Saviour we make confession with our mouths of the new life and hope that is within us. The sinner's only hope is for God to apply His mercy and grace to those who are dead — there is no other remedy for us.
The Lord had every right to keep the life He had just restored. He asked nothing for it.
He might have claimed the life that He had restored; He might have said to him, "Follow Me," but He did not. He knew that the lad was his mother's only support and hope, and He gave him back to her.
Another writer draws the same conclusion even more bluntly, refusing to let the gift be turned into a bargain:
Let me be bold and say, The Lord does not save you that you may serve Him. To suggest the thought would be to qualify the beauty of grace. He did not say, "I give you life that you may spend it for Me."
One writer sets this beside an earlier raising of a widow's son.
God came in and, through Elijah and in answer to his prayer, raised the widow's son to life again, and the prophet "delivered him to his mother." (Compare Luke 7:15.) In this way the Lord revealed Himself to her soul as the God of resurrection. He settled her in the truth and strengthened her faith by resting her on a foundation that lies beyond death and can never change… In the same way our blessed Lord Himself was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:4).
Some commentators also read the widow and her son as a picture of Israel: desolate now, restored later. One draws in Naomi, the widow of the book of Ruth.
Here is the same lesson as seen in Naomi in the Book of Ruth. Naomi pictures Israel's former blessing brought down to widowhood and ruin… so it takes the raising of a son to show Israel's future rising from death… He touched the coffin and spoke with calm authority to the young man, who sat up and began to speak. This is a wonderful preview of the day when good words will fill the mouth of Israel (Hos. 14:1-3).
- Compassion first. He saw her, pitied her, comforted her — and only then touched the frame carrying her son. The order of the steps is part of the lesson.
- Command second. The dead did not respond to a technique but to a voice. Nothing marks out God like raising the dead.
- Life third. Sitting up was no twitch in a corpse. A living man sat where a dead one had lain.
- Voice fourth. Speech proved the life was real. Those raised from spiritual death confess with their mouths too.
- Gift last. He handed the son straight back to his mother and claimed nothing. Grace does not name its price first.
And fear seized on all, and they glorified God, saying, A great prophet has been raised up amongst us; and God has visited his people.
The crowd at Nain has just watched Jesus stop a funeral and raise a dead young man. They react with fear, praise, and two confessions about Him — but was what they said enough?
Why fear? Raising the dead is the act that marks out God Himself. One writer sets it even above the making of the world.
God was there; God was with that Man in His own power. For what is more characteristic of God than raising the dead? It was even more wonderful than creation. That God should create is, so to speak, natural. But when God raises the dead to life again, it comes after what He created has fallen into ruin. It shows His all-embracing power to recover to the uttermost. It assumes man's weakness and evil, and the enemy's temporary success. Yet it shows God as superior to every hostile power in the creature.
The people had a category ready. Israel's past held two men who had brought back the dead. Neither of them did it by a word alone.
Elijah raised the son of a widow, but he had to humble himself and cry to the Lord. Elisha also raised the son of the Shunammite, but only after stretching himself over the child. But the Lord commands, and death has to release its prey at the one word.
The crowd reasoned back from the authority in His voice to the greatness of the speaker.
Great prophets, such as Elijah and Elisha, restored dead ones to life. They had prayed about it, and their prayers were answered. The One walking among men was not inferior to them. He could command where they did not. So He must be a great prophet, if death loosened its grip at His word.
Commentators are careful here. What the crowd said was not wrong. It fell far short of who was standing in front of them.
The people fear, and glorify God. The word goes out through all Judea that a great prophet has risen up, and God has visited His people. That testimony is true, but it falls far below the wonderful truth about His Person who was there.
Greek has more than one word for God coming to a people. Luke does not use the one that means punishment.
"Visited." Compare 1:68 and 19:44, where it is also a merciful visitation. The word for "visitation" in the sense of vengeance is a different one, as in Luke 21:22.
Luke's Gospel records visit after visit. One writer traces that thread to its high point.
Luke reports many visits… But the greatest visit is God's own. Three times we read of this tremendous fact: "God has visited His people" (7:16; see also 1:68, 78)!
Six chapters earlier, a priest said almost these words over his newborn son. At Nain a crowd says them back.
"God had visited His people." The prophetic words of Zacharias were coming true: "He has visited and redeemed His people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us, in the house of His servant David" (1:68-69). So spoke the aged priest. "God has visited His people" was, as it were, the response of the crowd at the gate of the city of Nain.
The miracle is not filed away as a one-off wonder. The voice that stopped the funeral is the voice a reader can still hear.
Do you say that this was a miracle, and so exceptional? Learn then that His miracles, real as they were, were written down like His words. They were written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Believing, you might have life in His name… His voice now appeals to you in the gospel. For the hour now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.
- Visit, not verdict. Luke's word is the language of mercy, not vengeance. The word for a visit of judgment is a different one (Luke 21:22).
- Visit, promised. The priest Zacharias sang it over his baby son. Now a crowd at a graveside says it out loud, and God is keeping that promise in front of them.
- Visit, proved. Elijah pleaded and Elisha stretched himself over a body; Jesus speaks one word and death lets go. The authority is the evidence.
- Visit, under-named. "A great prophet" is a true confession that still falls well short of the Person standing there.
- Visit, still open. His miracles were written down so that readers would believe and live. The voice that woke a young man at Nain still reaches us in the gospel.
And this report went out in all Judaea concerning him, and in all the surrounding country.
The raising of the widow's son at Nain does not end at the city gate — it ends with a story travelling. Verse 17 follows the news itself: what people concluded about Jesus, how far it travelled, and who heard it.
The report that spread was not a bare account of a miracle. It carried a verdict about the person who worked it — and that verdict, though sincere, fell short.
The people fear and glorify God. The word goes out through all Judea that a great prophet has risen up, and that God has visited His people. It is a testimony true indeed, but far below the wonderful truth about the Person who was there.
What made the crowd reach even that far was the manner of the miracle. Israel's history held earlier raisings, but they came a different way.
Perhaps they had recalled such miracles from their history in the distant days of Elijah and Elisha. But these great men were only dependent servants who had to beg God for mercy. Elijah had to bow low, stretching himself over a widow's son before he was raised. The Lord gives the command of authority, and death has to release its prey.
The phrase in the crowd's mouth is not a threat. The word behind "visited" is the language of mercy. Luke uses a different word when he means judgment.
"Visited." Compare 1:68 and 19:44, where it is also a merciful visitation (episkopē). The word for "visitation" in the sense of vengeance is ekdikēsis, as in Luke 21:22.
The priest Zacharias had said the same words earlier, at the birth of his son John.
"God had visited His people." The prophetic words of Zacharias were coming true: "He has visited and redeemed His people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us, in the house of His servant David" (1:68-69). So spoke the aged priest. "God has visited His people" was, as it were, the answer of the crowd at the gate of the city of Nain.
The miracle happened in Galilee, so the mention of Judea raises a question of geography. Commentators differ on whether Luke means the whole land or only the southern region.
"Judea." Meyer, Ewald, Weiss and H. Holtzmann take this to mean the whole land. Hahn holds that it is never used that way anywhere in the New Testament. He points out that the Lord's opponents were mainly in the South.
Either way, the miracle proved who Jesus is, and the news outran the region where it happened.
This great miracle of resurrection stirred a healthy, reverent fear among the people. This, with other times He raised the dead, proves that Jesus is "the Son of God in power" (Romans 1:4)... The report went out to all the surrounding area and to Judea, some distance removed from Galilee.
The news also reached one particular listener, far outside Galilee.
But the report of the Lord's miracle reached beyond the borders of Galilee: "this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country." And John the Baptist heard of it through his disciples. He was in prison in the castle of Machaerus, on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea.
The man sent to point others to Jesus ends up needing to be pointed to Him — and is answered with kindness.
Here was One who did not seek His own glory, yet He could not help pointing to what God was doing, for God was with Him... But was it not sad and humbling that the one raised up specially to bear witness to Jesus should need witness from Jesus? And Jesus, in the overflowing of His grace, gives witness not only to what God was doing through Himself, but to John as well.
The news of Nain did not stop with that generation. It was recorded so that it would keep arriving.
Do you, my reader, answer that this was a miracle, and therefore exceptional? They were true miracles, yes. But learn this: like His words, they were written down for a reason. They were written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you might have life in His name... His voice now appeals to you in the gospel. For the hour is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
- The report's content. What spread was a confession: a great prophet has risen, God has visited His people. True — but far below the truth about the Person standing there.
- The report's cause. Elijah and Elisha had to plead with God to raise the dead. Here a word of authority makes death let go. That difference set tongues moving.
- The report's word. "Visited" is Luke's word for mercy, not vengeance. It picks up the prophecy of Zacharias from chapter 1.
- The report's reach. It ran past Galilee into Judea and the whole surrounding region. Commentators differ over whether "Judea" here means the southern region or the whole land.
- The report's result. It carried as far as John the Baptist's prison. The same written record now carries to you, so that hearing the voice of the Son of God, you may live.