Luke 9:18-22; Mt. 16:13-20, “Don’t Tell People Who I am” (1)

Luke 9 gives us a lot of opportunity to consider the question, “Why did Jesus tell people not to tell others who He was, and not to tell others about miracles He had performed?”  I have heard this question often.  I would like to work our way through Luke 9:18-62 and see what we learn about God’s work in the Incarnation.

Let me mention two answers to these questions.  One builds on the fact that God was going to blind Israel (Mt. 13:10-17).  Jesus spoke to the disciples in parables so that they could understand and so that the “already blind and deaf” people would not understand.  Another solution is that Jesus wanted to avoid the problem of a popular uprising of support because people liked the miracles, and not because they had properly received Him by faith (John 1:10-13; 6:26-27).

One other thing to note before we begin our study is that Luke 9 is where Jesus begins His final journey to Jerusalem (9:51).  It will take some time before He arrives in Jerusalem, but it is at this point in His ministry that “He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.”

·       9:18-22: For many, the question we are considering really comes up strong in this passage.  Why would Jesus tell the Twelve not to tell others that He is the Christ?  The only clue we get as to the cause of this command is in v22.  Jesus tells them that He will suffer at the hands of men, be killed and raised the third day.  It is possible that the “prophet’s conundrum” is what He is talking about here.  Remember that the prophets, including John the Baptist, struggled to understand the suffering and the glory of the Messiah (1 Pt. 1:10-12).  In other words, “don’t tell people who I am because they are already confused; let them just wait and figure it out after I am raised.”  That is what happened with the Twelve.  These things didn’t make sense until Jesus explained the Scripture to them after His resurrection.

o   But what I believe makes more sense is that Jesus is saying, “don’t tell them because this has to happen; if you tell them I am the Christ it might encourage the ‘popularity’ factor and they may try to make me king like they did earlier” (John 6:15).

o   I don’t always like to draw from the other Synoptic Gospels but let me mention something from Matthew’s account (6:13-20).  Matthew also records Jesus telling them not to tell people He was the Christ.  But Matthew also quotes Jesus as telling Peter, “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”  One danger is that if the Twelve were to go out and broadcast that Jesus was the Christ, there could be many who would accept Him as the Christ, but not because God revealed it to them.  It might be because they were Zealots or partisans in some other sense and would see Jesus as a “cause” around which they could advance their own agenda.

This is something to think about in our own day.  In the American Church, while I don’t know hearts, it seems quite likely there are people who side with Jesus, and will say or confess what needs to be said or confessed, only because they see Him as supporting their politics or sociology or economics, etc.  It looks to the human eye like there are a lot of Evangelical Christians when many have not heard or known “the grace of God in truth” (Col. 1:6).