Commentary - Luke 17:22-37

Bird's-eye view

In this section of Luke's Gospel, Jesus turns from addressing the Pharisees about the nature of the kingdom's arrival (it is not with observation, but is among you) to a private instruction for His disciples about the nature of His own coming. This is a critical passage for rightly understanding New Testament eschatology. The disciples, steeped in Old Testament expectations, were anticipating a glorious, immediate, and visible manifestation of the Son of Man's kingdom. Jesus corrects and refines this expectation. He tells them that before the glory, there must be suffering. Before the final vindication, there will be a period of waiting and longing. And the "coming" He describes here is not primarily His final return at the end of history, but a historical, covenantal judgment that would fall upon the nation of Israel within their own generation. This coming would be sudden, catastrophic, and as visible as lightning, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. The passage serves as a solemn warning against being caught up in the worldly affairs and spiritual stupor that characterized the generations of Noah and Lot, urging a radical detachment from the world that is under judgment.

Jesus is preparing His followers for the great transition between the old covenant and the new. The destruction of the Temple would be the definitive sign that the Judaic age was over and the age of the Messiah's heavenly reign had been fully inaugurated. Therefore, the warnings here are intensely practical: do not get swept up in false alarms, do not be attached to earthly possessions, and understand that this coming judgment will be a day of sharp separation. It is a sorting day, a day of vindication for the elect and a day of ruin for the apostate. The disciples needed to know how to read the signs of their times and how to live faithfully in the interim.

Outline

Context In Luke

This discourse follows Jesus' interaction with the Pharisees concerning the kingdom of God (Luke 17:20-21). He told them the kingdom does not come with observable signs that they could track on a chart, but was already present in their midst in His person and ministry. Now, He turns to His disciples to give them a different kind of instruction. If the kingdom is already here, what does its future manifestation look like? This passage is Luke's parallel to the Olivet Discourse found in Matthew 24 and Mark 13. While shorter, it covers the same essential themes: the rejection of the Messiah, the coming judgment on "this generation," the suddenness of that judgment, and the need for watchfulness. The warnings are directed at those who will live through the tumultuous events leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem, which would serve as the ultimate vindication of Jesus' kingship and the final end of the old covenant age.

Key Issues

Where, Lord?

The disciples' final question is perhaps the most telling in the entire passage: "Where, Lord?" They are still thinking in terms of geography, of a localized event. Jesus' answer is a proverb, and it is devastating. "Where the body is, there also the vultures will be gathered." This is not a difficult riddle. Vultures, or more accurately, eagles, the emblem of the Roman legions, gather where there is a carcass. The judgment will fall where the spiritual death is. The corruption was in Jerusalem. The apostasy was centered in the Temple. The rejection of the Messiah was formalized by the leadership of that city. And so, the judgment would not be in some far-off, abstract location. It would be right there, upon the spiritually dead body of first-century Judaism. The Roman armies, under Titus, were God's eagles, sent to clean up the carcass of a covenant that had been broken and a people who had rejected their King. Jesus is not giving them a map; He is giving them a principle. Judgment is not arbitrary. It is drawn to corruption as surely as carrion birds are drawn to a corpse.

Verse by Verse Commentary

22 And He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.

Jesus now turns to His inner circle. The days are coming, He says, when they will be under intense pressure. Persecution will rise, the world will seem to be winning, and they will desperately wish for a day of vindication, a day when the Son of Man shows up to make everything right. They will long for just one of the glorious days they imagined, but it will not come on their timetable or in the way they expect. This is a preparation for the long haul of kingdom work. The Christian life is not a series of glorious mountain-top experiences. There are long stretches in the valley where faith is tested, and the longing for the King's return is acute.

23 And they will say to you, ‘Look there! Look here!’ Do not go away, and do not run after them.

Because of this intense longing, they will be susceptible to false alarms. Hysterical reports will circulate. "The Messiah is back! He's over here in the desert!" "No, He's in this secret chamber!" Jesus' command is simple and absolute: Don't chase after these rumors. Don't even go out to look. Why? Because when the Son of Man is revealed in judgment, it will not be a localized, secret, or ambiguous event that you might miss if you are not in the right place at the right time.

24 For just like the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day.

The coming of the Son of Man in judgment will be as obvious and undeniable as a flash of lightning that illuminates the entire sky. No one has to run around saying, "Look, lightning!" Everyone sees it. It is sudden, brilliant, and universally visible to all who are under that sky. This is not describing a secret rapture. This is describing a public and catastrophic event. When the Roman armies surrounded Jerusalem, when the Temple was burned, when the city was leveled, it was not a secret. It was a lightning flash of God's wrath, a historical event for all the world to see, vindicating Jesus' words.

25 But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

Here is the divine necessity that the disciples kept stumbling over. Before the glory, there must be the cross. Before the vindication, there must be rejection. And notice who rejects Him: this generation. This is a crucial time-stamp. Jesus is speaking about His immediate contemporaries, the generation of first-century Jews who would see His ministry, reject Him, and call for His crucifixion. Their rejection is what seals their fate and brings about the judgment He is describing. The suffering of the Messiah is the pivot point of history, and the rejection of that suffering Messiah by His own people is the grounds for the covenant lawsuit that will culminate in A.D. 70.

26-27 And just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

Jesus provides two historical analogies for the spiritual condition of the people when judgment falls. The first is the generation of Noah. What characterized them? Not extraordinary, spectacular wickedness, but rather a complete absorption in the mundane affairs of life. Eating, drinking, marrying, these are all good, God-given activities. The sin was not in the activities themselves, but in the fact that they were pursued in a state of total oblivion to the Word of God. Noah, the preacher of righteousness, warned them for 120 years, but they were deaf. They were so engrossed in "business as usual" that the day of judgment swept them away unawares. So it would be with "this generation." They would be so caught up in their lives that they would miss the coming destruction entirely.

28-29 It was the same as in the days of Lot, they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.

The second analogy is Sodom. Again, the emphasis is on the normalcy of life right up to the moment of catastrophe. They were engaged in commerce, agriculture, and construction. Life was humming along. But their prosperity and activity masked a deep moral and spiritual rot. And the judgment was sudden and absolute. One moment, it was a normal day; the next, fire was raining from heaven. The key element in both stories is the utter surprise of the wicked and the deliverance of the righteous (Noah, Lot) just before the end.

30 It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed.

Jesus applies the analogies directly. The "day that the Son of Man is revealed" refers to this coming in judgment upon Jerusalem. It will not be preceded by a long, slow decline that everyone sees coming. It will break in upon a world that is completely preoccupied with itself, a world that has ignored the warnings of Christ and His apostles.

31 On that day, the one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house must not go down to take them out, and likewise the one who is in the field must not turn back.

The warning here is one of extreme urgency. When the sign comes, which, from the parallel accounts, is the surrounding of Jerusalem by armies (Luke 21:20), there is no time to waste. The flat housetops were used as living spaces. If you are on the roof, flee across the rooftops. Don't even go back inside to grab your valuables. If you are working in the field outside the city walls, don't run back to your house to get anything. Flee for your life. This is not advice for a global, end-of-the-world scenario. It is specific, practical, geographical advice for escaping a besieged city. Your possessions will mean nothing; only your life matters.

32 Remember Lot’s wife.

This is one of the shortest and most potent verses in the Bible. What was the sin of Lot's wife? She looked back. Her body was leaving Sodom, but her heart was still there. Her affections were still entangled with the city under judgment. To look back was to long for what was being destroyed. Jesus' warning is clear: when the time comes to flee the condemned city of Jerusalem, do not have a divided heart. Do not be attached to the old covenant system, the Temple, the traditions, the property. Let it all go. To hesitate is to be destroyed with it.

33 Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.

This is a foundational principle of discipleship, applied here to a specific crisis. If you try to save your physical life and your possessions by staying in Jerusalem, by compromising with the Judaizers, by clinging to the old order, you will be swept away in the destruction and lose your true life. But if, for the sake of Christ and His word, you are willing to "lose" your earthly life, your home, your goods, your standing, by fleeing as He commanded, you will save your ultimate life. The early church historian Eusebius tells us that the Christians in Jerusalem, remembering this warning, fled the city before the final siege and were spared.

34-36 I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other will be left. There will be two women grinding grain at the same place; one will be taken and the other will be left. [Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other will be left.”]

This is the great separation. These verses have been tragically misinterpreted by dispensationalists to refer to a secret rapture where believers are "taken" to heaven. But the context is one of judgment, not rescue. In the analogies of Noah and Lot, who was "taken"? The wicked were taken by the floodwaters and the fire. Noah and Lot were "left" behind to inherit the new earth. The Greek word for "taken" here (paralambano) can mean to receive to oneself, but in a context of judgment, it carries the sense of being taken away by the agent of judgment. One is taken in judgment; the other is left, spared. The judgment will fall with surgical precision, dividing people in the most intimate settings of life, in bed, at work. It is a divine sorting, not a secret escape.

37 And answering they said to Him, “Where, Lord?” And He said to them, “Where the body is, there also the vultures will be gathered.”

The disciples want a location. Jesus gives them a principle. Judgment is not random. It is precise. The "vultures", or eagles, the standard of the Roman legions, will gather where the spiritual corpse lies. The apostate city of Jerusalem had become a carcass in God's sight. It was spiritually dead, having rejected the Lord of Life. Therefore, it was the target of the covenantal judgment that was coming. The Roman armies were not the ultimate cause; they were the instrument, the scavengers drawn to the decay that was already present.

Application

While the specific, historical fulfillment of this prophecy was the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, the principles it contains are timeless. The world is always like the days of Noah and Lot. People are always tempted to become so engrossed in their eating and drinking, buying and selling, that they become spiritually deaf to the warnings of God. We are called to live in this world, but not to be of it. Our hearts must not be entangled in the things that are passing away.

We must "remember Lot's wife." Where are our affections? Are we trying to flee the city of destruction while constantly looking back over our shoulder, longing for its fleeting pleasures? The call of Christ is a call to radical detachment from the world's value system. It is a call to be willing to lose everything for His sake, knowing that in losing our lives, we find them.

And finally, we must understand that judgment is real and it is discriminating. God sees the heart. He knows who are His. The day is coming when all humanity will be sorted. We live in the long days of the Son of Man, the age of the Church, and we too can grow weary and long for His final appearing. We must not be led astray by false alarms or hysterical predictions. We must simply be faithful where we are, living with a sober awareness that history is headed toward a final judgment, and our only safety is in the ark of Jesus Christ. The Lord is reigning from heaven now, and He is putting all His enemies under His feet. Our task is to live as loyal citizens of that unshakable kingdom, not as anxious hoarders in a world that is destined to be shaken.