Luke 19:41 - Meaning and Application

The great Ambassador from heaven was making his public entry into Jerusalem, not to be honored there, but to be rejected. He knew he was going into a place full of danger, yet we see two clear signs of his love for that city and his concern for it.

First, he wept over the ruin that was coming on the city (Luke 19:41). When he came near and saw Jerusalem, he wept over it. This may have been as he came down the slope from the Mount of Olives, where he could see the city spread out before him, with its large size and fine buildings. What he saw touched his heart, and his heart showed itself in tears.

This tells us how tender Christ was. We never read that he laughed, but we often find him weeping. Even his father David wept in this same place, along with the men who were with him, though they were men of war. There are times when even the strongest people are right to weep.

Christ also wept in the middle of his triumph. While the crowd around him was rejoicing, he was sorrowful. This showed that he was not lifted up by human praise and applause. In that way, he teaches us to rejoice with humility and caution. If God does not bring sorrow into our triumphs, we may still have reason to temper our joy with grief.

He wept over Jerusalem. Some cities deserve tears, and none more than Jerusalem, which had been the holy city and the joy of the whole earth, if it falls into corruption. But why did Christ weep when he saw it? It was not mainly because this was the city where he would be betrayed, bound, mocked, condemned, and crucified. He gives the reason himself.

Jerusalem had not used its time of opportunity well. He said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace” (Luke 19:44). That is, if you had only understood the gospel while it was being preached to you, and had accepted the salvation it offered, then all could still be well. He also said they did not know the time when God came to them in mercy. The way he speaks is full of grief, as if to say, “If only you had known.” It is much like saying, “If only my people had listened to me” (Psalm 81:13; Isaiah 48:18).

Christ lays the blame for Jerusalem’s coming ruin on the city itself. There are things that belong to our peace, and we all need to know them. These are the things that show how peace with God is made, what offers of peace are made to us, and on what terms we may receive them. They are the things that matter for both this life and the life to come, so we must know them with real attention.

There is also a time when these things can be known to good effect. When the means of grace are plentiful, when God’s word is preached with power, when the Spirit is at work, and when our consciences are awakened, then God is visiting us in mercy. We must make good use of that time.

If people have long ignored their time of visitation, yet if at last their eyes are opened and they turn to think rightly, there is still hope. Those who come into the vineyard at the eleventh hour are still received. But it is a terrible folly when people who have the gospel keep putting it off and do not use their time well. The things that belong to their peace are made known to them, but they pay no attention. They shut their eyes to them as if they were unimportant. They do not see the accepted time and the day of salvation, and they let it slip away through carelessness. No one is so blind as the person who refuses to see.

The sin and foolishness of those who keep despising gospel grace deeply grieve the Lord Jesus, and they should grieve us too. He looks with tears on lost souls that stay unrepentant and rush toward their own ruin. He would rather they turn and live than continue on to death, for he is not willing that any should perish.

Jerusalem could not escape the day of her destruction. The things that belonged to her peace were now, in a sense, hidden from her eyes, and they would soon be fully hidden. This does not mean the gospel was never preached there afterward. The apostles did preach it, and all the house of Israel were told clearly that Christ was their peace (Acts 2:36). Many were convinced and converted. But as a nation, and especially as its leaders, they were left in unbelief. God gave them a spirit of deep sleep (Romans 11:8). They were so hardened against the gospel, and against the few who received it, that only a miracle of grace, like Paul’s conversion, could have changed them. Since such a miracle was not to be expected, they were justly given over to blindness and hardness of heart.

This did not mean that no individual Jew could be saved, only that it was now too late to expect the Jewish nation as a whole to become Christian by accepting Christ. So they were marked out for ruin, which Christ here foresaw and foretold as the certain result of rejecting him. Neglecting great salvation often brings present judgments on a people. It did so to Jerusalem within forty years of this, exactly as Christ predicted.

The Romans besieged the city, built a wall around it, and shut up its people on every side. Josephus says Titus quickly raised a wall that surrounded the city and cut off every hope of escape. They also leveled it to the ground. Titus ordered his soldiers to dig it up, and the whole city was destroyed except for three towers. Not only the city, but the people within it were brought low by terrible slaughter, and hardly one stone was left on another. This was the punishment for crucifying Christ and for not knowing the time when God had visited them. Let every city and nation take warning.

Second, Christ showed zeal for the present cleansing of the temple. Even though the temple would soon be destroyed, that did not mean it should be left unclean in the meantime. He cleared it of those who were profaning it.

He went straight to the temple and began to drive out the buyers and sellers (Luke 19:45). Even though people accused him of being an enemy of the temple, and that charge was later used against him before the high priest, he showed that he loved the temple more truly than they did. They made a great show of honoring the temple treasury, or corban, as something sacred, but the temple’s holiness mattered far more than its wealth.

Christ also gave a clear reason for removing the temple merchants (Luke 19:46). The temple was meant to be a house of prayer, a place set apart for fellowship with God. The buyers and sellers had turned it into a den of thieves by the dishonest trades they carried on there, and that could not be allowed, because it distracted those who came to pray.

He then used the temple in the best way possible, by teaching there every day (Luke 19:47). It is not enough to cleanse a church of corruption. The preaching of the gospel must also be encouraged.

When Christ taught in the temple, the church leaders showed great hostility toward him. The chief priests, scribes, and leading men of the people, the great Sanhedrin, should have listened to him and called the people to hear him too. Instead, they looked for a chance, or at least a pretext, to destroy him and put him to death.

The common people, by contrast, showed him respect. They listened to him carefully and were eager to hear him. He spent most of his time in the country and did not often preach in the temple, but when he did, the people paid close attention and did not want to miss a word. Some understand this to mean that all the people, as they heard him, supported his cause. That would fit well as a reason his enemies could not easily do anything against him, because the people would have been ready to defend him if he was harmed. Until the time appointed for his death came, the people’s support protected him. But when that time came, the influence of the chief priests over the people handed him over.