Introduction

I haven't field tested the theory, but I suspect that this is the best known parable of Jesus. Whether in Christian circles or non-Christian circles, people know about this parable. But in all fairness, they don't know the whole account. Most people only know verses 30-35. There is an entire setting in which this account takes place, but most people only know the bit that says, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho," and so on. That is then fit into a certain grid: "You want to know what a real Christian looks like?" they say. "Love God; love your neighbor." And that means helping someone when his car is broken down by the side of the road. That's what a Christian is. It's not entirely wrong, but it seems to leave out quite a lot of things. For example, at this point in Luke's narrative, Jesus is on his way to the cross and the resurrection. Loving God and loving your neighbor—helping people who are broken down by the side of the road—is not the full picture. There's something more going on in the account than this.

What I want to do this morning, first of all, is take you through the entire account—not just the narrow parable, but all the way from verse 25 through verse 37. Then I want to show how it fits it into the broader flow of Luke's Gospel. I want to discuss what we can learn from the larger context, and then we'll think through how it applies to our lives today.

The story as a whole

First, let's talk about the parable in its immediate context. Verses 25-37 are structured as two matching dialogues. You will see this if you have your Bible open in front of you. First, a man asks Jesus a question. But instead of answering, Jesus replies with his own question. The man answers Jesus' question and only then does Jesus answer the man's question. Then the whole pattern is repeated. That's why I say there are two matching dialogues.

The man asks this question in verse 25: "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" And instead of answering, Jesus replies with a question: "What is written in the law? How do you read it?" The man answers Jesus' question by quoting two biblical verses. And then Jesus says in verse 28, "You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live."

That's the first pattern. And then it's all repeated. The man wants to justify himself, so he asks Jesus another question: "And who is my neighbor?" Before Jesus responds by asking his own question, he tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. This parable is the set up for Jesus' question in verse 36: "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" In other words, before Jesus answers the man's question with his own question, he has to tell a story to set it up. The expert in the law replies to Jesus' question: "The one who had mercy on him." And then Jesus answers the man.

The first question: What must I do to inherit eternal life?

Let's look at the first dialogue about "an expert in the law." For us that means a lawyer, but in those days it meant that he was a theologian—the law that was studied was God's Law. This meant that he was a religious leader, and the law in question was the law of God, especially what we call the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. That was his area of expertise. Luke tells us that he stood up to ask a question. In those days teachers customarily sat, and the listeners, the learners, usually sat all around the teachers. If somebody wanted to ask a question, that person would stand up. That was a sign of respect. It's hard to imagine this being done in our seminaries and churches today, but in some parts of the world you still find that kind of respect for teachers. You can go to parts of the world where teachers are treated with astonishing respect and sometimes a thoroughly unhealthy respect. I could mention some countries in Asia where students are actually told "Keep your head down. Don't look at the teacher in the eyeball, because that might be construed as a challenge. Keep your head down. Take down everything he says. If you repeat everything he says you'll pass and get a good grade." But that mindset doesn't necessarily teach you to think. You wouldn't ask a question in that kind of context because the teacher has so much gravitas connected with him that to challenge him in any way would seem demeaning. But in Jesus' day, questions could be asked right in the middle of an address, but to do so you needed to stand up. When the teacher recognized you, that's when you asked your question.

But the interesting thing here is what Luke says is the man's motive. "On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus." He didn't stand up out of respect for Jesus. That was just sheer hypocrisy. The man was feigning a kind of respect, but his motive was to be more than a smart mouth. Every class has a certain number of smart mouths who try to trip somebody up. Sometimes they're funny. But this man had a plan. His question was designed to take Jesus down a notch or two. That's not uncommon in the Gospels. For example, Luke 20:20 says, "Keeping a close watch on him, they sent spies who pretended to be sincere." They hoped to trap Jesus in something he said so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor. He tried to ask a question that would get Jesus to say something stupid or criminal. Reporters do this today when they ask politicians questions. They're trying to trap the bloke. You can watch these sorts of things on television or listen to them on the radio and know that there are degrees of corrupt motivations.

So he asks his question: "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" What do you make of that question? On the one hand, it sounds odd. We have become so familiar with it that we don't think about how odd it is. What do you to do inherit something? Get born into the right family. But, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Normally when you inherit something, you don't do something. You pay it off in dues before the old man dies, and then you inherit it. It's not normally the way inheritance works. People sometimes did speak of inheriting life in Jesus' day, but to speak of doing something to inherit eternal life overlooks the fact that inheritance is not payment for services rendered. "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" It presupposes some pretty fundamental misconceptions about inheritance, unless you're taking it in a purely metaphorical way. It presupposes some pretty fundamental misconceptions about the grace of God. Do you have to earn your eternal life? There are a lot of people who think along those lines. If I'm good enough, if I try hard enough, then maybe I'll squeak in. Maybe that's what he means. But in any case, precisely because the man's question has got a knot of misconceptions bound up with it, Jesus asks his question back.

A former student of mine, Randy Newman, has written a book called Questioning Evangelism. For those of you who are interested at trying your hand at evangelism and sharing the gospel, that's a great book to read. It's funny, for a start. And it really is quite a clever book. It works through all the passages in the Gospels where Jesus answers the question by asking his own question. It doesn't question the validity of evangelism. It talks about doing evangelism by asking questions. Randy works out the kinds of situations in which we ought to answer questions with questions because it's a good way of proceeding. Imagine that someone comes to you and says, "You don't really believe that everybody's going to hell except those people who trust, do you?" It's your question. Now what do you do with it? Do you say, "Well, yes, but this needs to be put within a broader theological perspective, and let me try to explain what the gospel is." You could do that, but the question is partly a smart aleck question to begin with. The person is not going to sit still long enough to listen to you. You've been put on the defensive. So, in reply, you could ask, "Oh, do you think that nobody should go to hell then?" The chances are high that they'll say something like this in return: "Maybe some people do. Hitler maybe. I mean … I suppose there are some people who deserve to go to hell." You could then follow up with this: "On what basis do you make the decision on who goes to hell and who doesn't?" And suddenly you're getting into questions of the place of God and what right and wrong is and what holiness looks like. But the step you've taken to ease into it has been your question. It's a questioning evangelism, and the master of it is Jesus himself.

Jesus basically says, You're the expert in the law. How do you read it? What do you think? I'd love to know what you think.

The man replies, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

Now those of us who read our Bibles know that that pair of verses is in another context quoted by Jesus himself. But the context makes all the difference. The passage where Jesus quotes those same verses is Mark 12:28-34. And in that context there's another expert in the law that approaches Jesus with a different attitude and a different question: "What is the greatest commandment in the law?" In the first century there were some theological thinkers who were asking that question. If you get that right it should order the priorities of your life, shouldn't it? Jesus answers,

The most important is, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." The second is this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

He quoted Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19, the same two passages that this bloke here quotes. But when Jesus quotes them he's not answering the question "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Rather, he's simply answering the question, "What is the most important commandment?" Maybe this fellow has actually heard Jesus say this sort of thing and is throwing the verses back at Jesus. Or maybe he heard someone else talk about this. I don't know where this chap got these notions, but his answer implies that he believed the way you inherit eternal life is by loving God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself.

And undoubtedly, judging by his attitude, his tone of condescension, he actually thought he was going to make it. And Jesus answers remarkably: "You answered correctly. Do this and live." Now if you have no feel for literature you might think, Jesus is actually saying this is the way you become a Christian. But then you're not listening to the flow of the whole account. Do you see what Jesus is saying? "You've answered correctly." Anyone who meets such a standard lives. Meet that standard and you don't need grace. All you have to do is be perfect. Go ahead. "Do this and live." That's what Jesus is saying. But the man begins to squirm a bit. That's why he asks his second question, as we'll see in a moment.

The struggle for self-justification

But before we see what this second question is and why he's squirming, you need to put yourself in this man's place. This chap has given off his right theological answers. That's what God requires. Love God with heart and soul and mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. He's given his right theological answers. And Jesus just smiles sweetly and patted him on the back and says, Well done. Do that and live. That's all that's required.

When you stop to think about it, what has the man committed himself to? Do you love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength? Anything less, of course, is idolatry. That's what it is. And painfully, we are all idolaters in some degree or another, some of the time or another. And love your neighbor as yourself? I mean, I love my neighbor sometime. My neighbor's got a bad back, so I offer to cut the grass. Then I can feel very self-righteous. Is that loving my neighbor as myself? I don't think so. What does it take to cut the grass, for goodness sake? If that's what it takes to get to heaven, heaven's going to be awfully empty.

So Jesus has managed by answering this man's question with his own question, enticing the man to commit himself to pure self-righteousness as a form of getting to heaven. He's exposed the man's emptiness. He's exposed the man's inability. Go ahead. Do this. All you have to do is be perfect, and you're in.

Now, Luke comments that the man hearing these words wants to justify himself. Now isn't that interesting? In other words, he knows he's being bested in the debate. Quite apart from the theological depths that are still to be plumbed, he knows he's been beaten by somebody who's better at debate than he is. So he's got to justify himself. You sometimes see that going on today. A asks B a question. B answers with such an excellent answer that A feels intimidated and has to ask another question, which may be even more stupid than the first one. But there's something deeper going on, because the theme of self-justification is actually one of the minor themes that Luke keeps picking up in his Gospel.

Let's back off a moment. There's a big theme in Romans: Justification is that act by which God justifies us. That is, God declares us to be just. It's something that God does. God justifies us on the basis of what Christ has done. He bore our guilt. Now, Christ's righteousness is ours and our guilt is his, and he paid for it on the cross. On that basis God justifies the ungodly.

So what's the opposite of justification? Well, you could say the opposite of justification is no justification, I suppose. But tilt the angle a little and the opposite of justification is self-justification. Because in justification God is the one who justifies us. The opposite of that is that we justify ourselves. It doesn't take much imagination to be aware of how much sin is bound up with self-justification. Sometimes it's fairly innocuous, like the guy who says, "Let me tell you about the fish that got away. It was huge! No wonder it got off my line. It was this big!" And thus, we're justifying the fact that we lost it by exaggerating the size and weight of the fish over against the weight of the fishing line.

Or we tell a story about how we got into some sort of argument with somebody at work, and as we retell the story, who wins? Now it might have been more ambiguous at work, but when we retell the story there's an element of self-justification that goes in there. Then we also justify ourselves in the decisions we make after the fact and so on. And we live with ourselves and our guilt and our shame and our defeat sometimes by justifying ourselves in our own minds, instead of bringing things back to the test of Scripture. There's a huge amount of sin that's bound up with self-justification. In fact, it starts in Genesis 3. God asks, "Adam, what's going on here?" Adam replies: "It's that woman you gave me." We blame somebody else as a form of self-justification. God asks: "Eve, what's going on here?" And she replies: "It's that snake, for goodness sake." Do you see how self-justification works? Instead of seeking God's justification, we justify ourselves.

And as I've said, that's a theme that keeps showing up in Luke's Gospel. It's not accidental here. So, for example, in Luke 16, Jesus can draw attention to two or three things. Verse 14 says,

The Pharisees, who loved money, when they heard all that Jesus was talking about regarding money, were sneering at him. So he said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others. But God knows you heart."

You hear that theme recurring? In other words, they were justifying themselves in part on the fact that they had pretty good bank accounts, and obviously they were blessed by God. They were justifying themselves on the basis of what they had. Self-justifying people might say, "Of course there are a lot of poor people that need practical help, but they asked for it. They weren't disciplined. They didn't work hard enough." That's a form of self-justification.

But the theme of self-justification isn't just in this passage. Jesus also depicts two people going up to the temple to pray in Luke 18. He doesn't use the term self-justification, but it's the same sort of account. Two people go up to the temple to pray, the Pharisee and the tax collector. And the Pharisee is full of self-justification. He stands and prays, "God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—even this tax collector over there. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get." That's self-justification. "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'" And then Jesus says, "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God." The man who was self-justified is condemned, and the man who begins, "God, be merciful to me a sinner," is justified by God.

So as this theme percolates through the entire Gospel and into Acts the question you have to ask yourself is this: Are you going to go through life seeking self-justification or God's justification? Because you sure can't have both.

The second question: Who is my neighbor?

And now as Luke tells the story he says this man, wanting to justify himself, kicks off the second round of the matching dialogues. He asks, Well, if you're going to stipulate that I've got to love my neighbor as myself, then who is my neighbor? And in response Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan as a set up for his question. So you have this picture of a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, which is downhill most of the way, seventeen miles of rugged terrain. He is robbed, beaten, stripped. He's naked and unconscious by the side of the road.

Now, first century society was highly structured, and different groups could be identified by their language, their dress, and their accent. The priests, for example, often spoke Hebrew. The peasants spoke Aramaic, especially in the south. Along the coasts some still spoke ancient Phoenician. Up north in Galilee they spoke Greek. The government officials, emissaries of Rome, all spoke Latin. And then of course most of them could speak some of the other languages, and when they spoke it they spoke with those different accents. So if somebody was speaking to you in Greek with a Latin accent then you knew that he had some sort of government relationship. So you could be identified by your accent. And similarly, to some extent, you could be identified by your dress. People wore different things, depending on what part of the country they came from, what kind of activity they were involved in, and so on. But this man is unconscious, so you can't hear him talk, and he's naked, so you can't see what stratum he comes from. He's just white trash by the side of the road.

So as a result, when the priest comes by he probably would have responded a little differently if the man had still been wearing his priestly garb. Or if he had been filthy rich then there might be some kudos involved in helping out somebody who's flighty rich. But now he's just a broken, bleeding carcass. He might not actually live all that long; he's unconscious, for goodness sake. And besides that, if there were some thugs around to beat him up, who knows if they're still around. Maybe they're going to jump on me. Maybe what I ought to do is get out of here pretty fast. You can understand all the equivocations and mental self-justifications. So a priest, and then a Levite, kind of junior priest, pass by on the other side.

And then along comes the Samaritan. It's hard to think of a similar pairing today. But for shock value, let's put it this way. The Evangelical Free minister passes by. Then a local Catholic priest sees the injured man and he goes by. And then along comes a Muslim imam, and he stops. You're not supposed to tell stories like that. The wrong guy wins. But it's that kind of shock value that is going on in the story because Samaritans in Jesus' day were despised. They were half breeds racially, and theologically they were really suspect. They only believed Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. They didn't accept the rest of the Old Testament. As a result, they knew nothing about King David and Jerusalem temple and all of that. In fact, they had built their own temple up in Samaria and on Gerizim. At one point, before the coming of Christ the Jews went up and tore it down. So there was a lot of bad blood between these two groups. As far as the Jews were concerned, the Samaritans were a bunch of half breed heretics. And as far as the Samaritans were concerned, the Jews were theologically aberrant. Not only that, but they were bullies as well.

But it's the Samaritan here, a despised Samaritan, who stops. He pours in oil and wine. They were often mingled together for medicinal purposes in those days. He puts him on his donkey. So that means he himself is walking now a lot of miles. And then he arrives at an inn—which wasn't like a Marriott Hotel. It was just a house with an extra animal shed attached to it. But nevertheless, the inn owners would provide you with some food for a fee. At least it's some kind of shelter with some modicum of safety and security. The man pays for a week or two. But at this stage he doesn't know how long it's going to take for this man to recover, and he's got to get on his way. So he says to the innkeeper, "If there are extra charges on the bill, I'll pay it." Now that's not just generous, it's also potentially saving this man from slavery. Because in the ancient world if you owed a debt and you couldn't pay, then not only the honorable thing but the required legal thing was to sell yourself into slavery. The man owned you because you owed him. So this man is stripped. He can't take out his Visa card and say, Charge this. He's got nothing. So the Samaritan has paid for a week or two, and before he can get on his way he's going to need some more. He's going to need some clothes. He's going to need more food and shelter. All of that costs money. Whatever it is I'll pay for it, he says. That means that if the man stays beyond the initial covered two weeks he still won't owe anything. He'll be able to leave freely without any debt and without selling himself into slavery. That's what the Samaritan has done.

Jesus' question: To whom must I be a neighbor?

So that's the set up story that Jesus tells. And then, verse 36, he asks his question. Now the question that the expert in the law asked was "Who is my neighbor?" But Jesus tweaks the question that he asks back. He doesn't ask, Who is my neighbor? He asks, To whom must I be a neighbor? Who is a neighbor to this man who fell among thieves? Instead of answering the original question: Who is my neighbor? Jesus undermines the man's entire attitude by asking this question: How do I become a neighbor? To whom must I be a neighbor? That changes the entire discussion. It is so penetrating. It exposes this man's self-justification. And the man is forced to answer, "the one who had mercy on him." He can't even bring himself to say the Samaritan, obviously. You don't use words like Samaritan in a positive context. He says, "The one who showed him mercy." And Jesus' response is, "Go and do likewise."

Now that's what the passage says when we go through it. I don't see how it can say anything else. But now pause for a moment and remind yourself of the context in which all of this takes place. We can't track out many details of the context, but let me draw your attention back to chapter nine. In chapter 9:44, Jesus has been talking about his impending death to his disciples. They still haven't figured out that Jesus, the Son of Man, the son of David, the Son of God, is actually going to die. But Jesus says, "'The Son of Man is going to be delivered unto the hands of men." But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so they did not grasp it and they were afraid to ask him about it. So they started an argument about who's going to be greatest. There's more self-justification. They haven't figured out where the cross fits in all of this, until you come to verse 51: "As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven," that is by the cross, "Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem." Now in Luke's Gospel that verse is absolutely crucial, because from here on as Luke tells the narrative everything is heading toward Jerusalem and the cross. Everything. This is sometimes called Luke's Travel Narrative. Even by chapter nine (out of twenty-four chapters), Jesus is already heading for the cross. And that's a way of saying that everything that takes place on this travel to Jerusalem points towards the end of the journey—the cross and the resurrection. Absolutely everything that takes place along this road to Jerusalem, toward which Jesus has resolutely set his face, is in light of the looming cross at the end.

Now that's part of the danger of reading a Gospel too slowly. If you read a Gospel too slowly and you don't remember the big sweeping picture, then you think and you think about what this paragraph means. And then tomorrow you have your devotions again, and you think and you think about what the next paragraph means. But you can lose sight of where the whole thing is running. It helps sometime to sit down in an afternoon and read Luke right through in one sitting. It will take you about an hour and a half. And then you begin to feel the drama of the whole thing, the pull of the whole thing, and you discover that 9:51 is really crucial. You are now on the way to Jesus' death and resurrection. You're on the way to the cross, and the whole narrative has to be read in that light.

So that when you get to chapter ten, you'll recall that in the training of the emissaries, the missionaries, the trainee missionaries that were being sent out, they come back and they're excited about all the fruit they've seen. It's wonderful that even the demons are subject to them in Jesus' name. And Jesus says, "Do not rejoice that the demons are subject to you in my name but rejoice that your name is written in heaven." In other words, the kingdom of God is not so much about power, even power exercised in Jesus' name. It's not so much about how effective you are or how fruitful you are or how smart you are, how gifted you are, how powerful you. After all there are some witnesses that are called of God to teach the gospel in parts of the world that are remarkably unfruitful. The thing that you should always be rejoicing over is that you're known by him, that your name is written in heaven, that you are his. It's not a question of doing and then you have bragging rights. That's self-justification all over again. No, it's a question of whether you're known by him, loved by him, in the kingdom or not. That's where you should really be rejoicing.

There's a story about Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who was probably the most gifted preacher in the English speaking world in the twentieth century. He exercised his ministry in the Westminster Chapel in London. And for decades his voice in books and on tapes and audio was certainly the most influential English preaching voice anywhere in the Western world. Tens of thousands were converted under his ministry, genuinely converted. And he himself was bound up with all sorts of ministries that brought revival to the church of his day. His influence was vast. But when he was succumbing to cancer as he lay in his flat in London, he would get up and put on his three-piece suit. Even though he was ill he never did anything without his three-piece suit on. Then he sat in a chair and edited a manuscript for an hour. Then he'd get undressed and go back to bed. He had no energy. He was only six months from his death.

A man named Iain Murray, who was designated to be his biographer would go and see him, still asking him questions, doing research before the "doctor" died. (They called him doctor because he was a medical doctor before he was a pastor.) And on one occasion Iain asked him, "How are you coping emotionally now that you've been put on the shelf? For decades everywhere you went thousands came to listen. You've been influential in organizations and ministry and preaching." Even after he retired from Westminster Chapel, he would go on these preaching tours around England, and thousands and thousands would show up. Murray continued, "And now it takes all of your energy to get up and sit in the chair for a bit and do a bit of editing and then go back to bed. How are you coping with that emotionally?" And Lloyd-Jones said, "'Do not rejoice that the demons are subject to you in my name. But rejoice that your name is written in heaven.' I am perfectly content."

In other words, this man was not grappling for self-justification on the basis of the extensiveness of his ministry. That's not where he got his jollies from. What gave him contentment was that he was Christ's.

That's part of the message of chapter ten about Jesus on the way to the cross. And then at the end of chapter ten Luke has the account of Mary and Martha where the one who is blessed is not the one who is scrambling to get a whole lot of stuff done—which can so often lead to more self-justification—but the one who was sitting at Jesus' feet as Jesus himself is on the way to the cross. And then the story of the Good Samaritan is squashed between the two. All of this suggests that as we think our way through the parable of the Good Samaritan we must remember that at the end of the day we must have God's justification of us that's paid for by Jesus on the way to the cross. And self-justification blinds us to these realities.

Conclusion

Now let's think through the implications of this story one more time.

First, Eternal life is not inherited, and at the end of the day, it is not gained by all the stuff we do. That is such systematic teaching from the Bible. It just comes through again and again and again.

After all, even the book of Deuteronomy, which this man quotes, and which also reports the words that we should love God with heart and soul and mind and strength, how does the book of Deuteronomy end up? People assume that Deuteronomy says, Obey all these commands and you shall live. Just obey all these commands and you shall die. And thus, the way you get to heaven is by doing all the good commands and not doing all the bad prohibitions, and then you'll live. But if that's what Deuteronomy is finally about, ask yourself this: Why does the book of Deuteronomy end the way it does? The book of Deuteronomy ends with Moses himself, the leader, not getting into the Promised Land. How could you possibly think that the book of Deuteronomy, in terms of its whole flow, is primarily about "just be obedient and you'll be all right"? Of course we're supposed to be obedient. But if Moses doesn't get into the Promised Land for his disobedience, how about all the other people who fall like flies in the desert? This is not saying—and please do not misunderstand me—that Moses doesn't go to heaven. That's not the point. But if Moses goes to heaven it's by God's grace not because he was so good. Nobody obeys those commands well enough to please God acceptably.

So when Jesus says to the man in this passage who cites these verses, "Go ahead. Do this and you shall live," the whole flow of the narrative shows that what Jesus is really saying, "Go ahead, be perfect and live." Of course that exposes why it's impossible for anybody to get into heaven that way. We're all bankrupt.

Secondly, this passage forces us to think about something else. It's not quite the point of the parable, but we can't help but reflect on it. Who is the perfect Good Samaritan? And you can't help but see that it's Jesus himself. Now let me insist that's not the point of this parable. And yet there's a hint of it in the fact that this is on the way to the cross. Just think: Jesus comes along and when nobody else stops and nobody else can heal you, he takes you up. He carries you. And he pays the entire shot, not only the short term debt but the long term debt so that you will not be enslaved. He pays for it all himself, and he goes after the despised and the broken and the bleeding and the dead when nobody else does, as he goes on the way to the cross. Of course Jesus is not telling the story of the Good Samaritan in order to say, You see, really I'm the Good Samaritan. And yet when you reread the entire account in the flow of where the whole of Luke's Gospel is going you can't help but see it. Jesus himself is the best of the best. He's the "goodest" Good Samaritan, the ultimate Good Samaritan.

But there's more. Clearly Jesus expects his followers to behave as he himself does. After all, elsewhere when Jesus talks about going to the cross he then says, "And you take up your cross daily and follow me." Or in 1 Peter 2 when Peter talks about the cross he talks about how Jesus died uniquely to bear "our sins in his own body on the tree." And then he adds, he also died, "leaving us an example, so that we should follow in his steps."

So it's not for nothing that this story ends with Jesus saying to the expert in the law, "Go and do likewise." It will not do to read this parable and say, Well, Jesus is on the way to the cross. Therefore he's the Good Samaritan. Therefore I don't have to be. Because Jesus does tell this man who thinks that he's going to be justified by his works, by his generosity, by his love for God, by his love for human beings, who actually think he's going to be good enough to win God's favor, that he'll never get to God by his good works.

For the truth of the matter is that although salvation is never grounded in good works it is impossible to be saved without them. It's not that the good works open the way to heaven for you. The whole account is against it. The whole theme of self-justification versus the justification of God is against it. The fact that everything is running to the cross is against it. There is no way in which we earn eternal life by being good enough, by loving God with heart and soul and mind and strength and our neighbors as ourselves. There's no way. On the other hand, those who are followers of Jesus remember that he is the "goodest" Good Samaritan, and we follow in his steps in gratitude and adoration. We become like the disciples in the previous chapter. We're sent out on a mission, even while we remember that what we must rejoice is that we're known by God, not that we're fruitful in mission. Nevertheless, we're sent out anyway. And hiding ourselves under the shelter of the cross, privileged to know God because of what Christ has done for us, we discover what a delight it is to serve as Jesus served and become Good Samaritans wherever Jesus has placed us.

Let us pray: We confess with shame, Lord God, how often we slink back to self-justification when what should capture our focus, our delight, our pleasure is the justification we have from you. You declare us just not because we are so loveable or wise or faithful or good but because Christ died for sinners, of whom I am chief. Yet we thank you, Lord God, that you not only is to serve as Jesus served and become Good Samaritans our self in the place where Jesus places us.

D. A. Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and author of numerous books, including Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus (Crossway).