And it came to pass as they went in the way, one said to him, I will follow thee wheresoever thou goest, Lord.
On the road a man offers Jesus unlimited loyalty, with no call and no conditions. The answer he gets is not about him at all, but about the road he has just volunteered for.
He speaks "as they were going along the road." That road already has one destination, and it colours everything that follows.
Luke 9:51 seems to include all the rest of the Gospel narrative under this general subject. The journey led on to Jerusalem, the place where He was to be crucified, and everything is in the light of that. If men are to follow Him, it is following One who is going to the cross.
The words sound like the finest thing a person could say to Jesus. They are also a promise made out of strength the speaker does not have.
It seemed a good confession, and it was a zealous resolution; but man can never go ahead of the Lord. No one ever did give himself up to God — he must be called. The person who says "I will follow you" does not know his own weakness. Think what man is and what Jesus is. For a man to say "I will follow you wherever you go" is plain presumption of the worst kind. Yet man sees no presumption in it. Man is so ignorant, so dulled by unbelief, that real faith looks presumptuous to him. Yet nothing is so humble. Faith forgets itself in the goodness and might of the One it leans on.
Christ puts the offer to the test. The test is a comparison with foxes and birds, and it measures what following Him would cost.
One man says, "Lord, I will follow you wherever you go," but Christ puts him to the test. You cannot go unless you share the lot of One who had nowhere to lay His head. You would sooner go to the birds of the air for a nest, or to the foxes for a hole, than to the Son of Man for a home in this world. They were not to come to Him now as the One who held the promises. They were to come to One whose portion was utter and complete rejection. Following Him could not come with ease and comfort here.
Darby traces the same pattern back to the night Jesus was born: "Everyone found room in the inn except Him, and anyone who wanted to find the One the angels celebrate had to go to the manger."
His homelessness was not bad luck. He owned the world He walked through, and the title Son of Man points to a rule that has not yet come.
The Lord's quiet answer neither pushed him away nor scolded him. It told him that true discipleship was not an easy calling... The Lord was a stranger in the middle of His own creation, though everything belonged to Him. One day He will rule over it all in the open as Son of Man (Psalm 8:6; Heb. 2:7-9). What effect the Lord's answer had on the man is not stated, and it does not concern us. What we need to know is the character of the path a true disciple must be willing to face.
So how does anyone follow at all? Kelly answers that the ability comes with the call.
No man is fit to follow the Lord until grace calls him. And when we are called, the Lord does not send us out at our own expense. He gives generously the wisdom and ability needed to those who ask Him; but He goes before us.
Luke never tells us what the man did. That silence turns the question toward every reader who has felt the same easy eagerness.
Some people say without thinking, "I would like to follow Him." That is just like the man who said, "Lord, I will follow you wherever you go." But Jesus spoke to this man. It was as if He said: Do you know what you are saying? Do you know why you are so ready to come? "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." Will you follow the Homeless Stranger?
- Road. He offers to follow on a journey with a fixed end — Jerusalem and the cross. To follow Him anywhere is to follow Him there.
- Resolve. "I will follow you" is the promise of a man who does not know his own weakness. No one ever gave himself to God; grace must call him, and grace supplies what it calls for.
- Reality. Foxes have holes and birds have nests. The Son of Man had less shelter in this world than His own creatures.
- Rejection. He is a stranger inside a world that belongs to Him — refused room at the inn at His birth, and now with nowhere to lay His head.
- Reign. The homeless Son of Man will one day openly rule over everything He now walks through as a stranger. The path is hard; the destination is not in doubt.
And Jesus said to him, The foxes have holes and the birds of the heaven roosting-places, but the Son of man has not where he may lay his head.
In Luke 9 two men offer to follow Jesus, and He calls a third. Each one meets the cost. The first man gets an answer that says nothing about his eagerness and everything about the poverty of the One he wants to follow.
The man's offer sounds generous. One writer weighs what it means to offer yourself to God before God has called you.
It seemed to be a good confession, and it was a zealous resolution; but man can never go ahead of the Lord. No one ever did give himself up to God — he must be called. The person who says "I will follow you" does not know his own weakness... He miscalculates. He overlooks the glory of Christ and the depth of His grace. He overlooks his own total lack of power, and perhaps even his need of forgiveness. No one is fit to follow the Lord until he is called by grace.
Jesus does not refuse the man. He describes the road, and that description is the test.
One says, "Lord, I will follow you wherever you go," but Christ puts him to the test. You cannot go unless you take up your lot with One who had nowhere to lay His head. You would sooner go to the birds of the air for a nest, or to the foxes for a hole, than to the Son of Man for a home in this world. They were not to come to Him now as the One who held the promises. They were to come to One whose portion was utter and complete rejection... At His birth we see the same thing. Everyone found room in the inn except Him.
Foxes and birds are not rich. They are small creatures with the barest cover, and they still have more than He does.
The Word who became flesh was the Son of Man, with rights to the whole creation. Yet He had nowhere to lay His head... Foxes and birds are creatures of His hand, members of the lower creation. They had their lairs and their nests, but He, the Lord of them all, was homeless.
No one took anything from Him by force. Another writer presses the difference between losing something and refusing it.
By personal right this Son of Man owned everything; He had never lost Eden... With all this title, He took nothing. He had lost nothing, but still He would have nothing. No sentence of judgement had exposed Him to hardship or sorrow. The earth on which He had the right to walk was not one of thorns and thistles. But He willingly took up all sorrow and hardship, and walked as one acquainted with grief all His days.
The man's impulse may have been sincere. But sincerity is not the same as strength.
This may have been the outcome of a generous impulse that drew the man to the Lord. At the same time it betrays the shallowness of nature. Nature did not grasp who the Lord was, where He was going, or the path He was treading... The energy of nature, however genuine, was not prepared for such a path. Nature can do much, but it cannot give up itself, its ease, its comforts, to follow a rejected Lord. And so, once the Lord set this path before the volunteer, we hear no more of him.
The man came hoping to get something. One writer shows how little was on offer.
The man was judged. He came for what he could get, and the Lord had nothing to give him — nothing but shame, and suffering, and destitution... There was no man in Israel so poor as the Lord Jesus. So it was no use for this man to follow Him in the hope of gaining by it.
The verse is not only a warning. It also explains where our own rest comes from.
There is only one man who never had a place of rest... And if we now have a nest, a place of rest in God, it is because for our sakes Jesus was without rest on earth.
One writer turns the verse on the ordinary longing for a home of your own.
No one likes to be without a home. There is a longing in everyone's heart for a resting place... But one blessed Stranger was here. He was the true Pilgrim, and He tells those who would follow Him that His was not a path of ease, of wealth or of power... We may have what we call a home. But as far as the real home of the soul goes, are we not joined with Him who had nowhere to lay His head?
- Offer. The man volunteers unlimited loyalty; no one ever gives himself to God unasked — he must be called.
- Test. Jesus answers by describing the road, not by praising the promise. A fox's hole is easier to find than a home for the Son of Man.
- Cost. He owned all creation and lost none of it, yet He took nothing; there was nothing on earth to gain by following Him.
- Exposure. Natural eagerness can do much, but it cannot surrender its own ease; the volunteer is never heard of again.
- Gift. He had no rest on earth so that we could have rest in God. That makes every follower a pilgrim here.