Luke 17:1-4--Temptations to Sin

Luke 17:1-4
English Standard Version
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Temptations to Sin
17 And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. 3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

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Jesus says that it is a fact that we will have to deal with temptation.  We know already that it is going to come from within us, and we know that the devil is going to be a tempter as well, but we sometimes will also face the issue of other people trying to tempt us to sin.  Jesus pronounces condemnation over those who would do this, especially to little children and would teach them to sin and encourage them to sin (some may even reward the sin of children to try to get them involved in deviant lifestyles).

For such a person who is out to ensnare innocent children, Jesus said it would better to have a millstone tied around your neck and thrown into the sea than to cause an innocent child to sin.  Jesus warns of severe punishment, but we know he's not talking about death as an escape because we already talked about that with the last teaching.

Jesus then says when a brother does sin (against us), rebuke him letting him know that this behavior is inconsistent with the identity that God has given to him as a son of God.  Use the word of God to do so, so that the Holy Spirit may use the Word to convict and bring about repentance, or so that when the one you thought to be a brother rejects the Word of God, then he exposes that he is truly in rebellion against God, and then it is time to go to the next steps in what we call Church discipline (which is not the point of this passage, so we'll talk about that another time).

To tie back to another teaching Jesus gave them recently, we are to forgive any sin committed against us, even if such a brother sins against us many times in the same day or commits sins that are so large and egregious that those who have not been born again would tell us that we shouldn't bother with forgiving them. 

Jesus tells us that we as forgiven people must forgive others with the same measure that we want God to forgive us.  We sin against Him all the time and yet He is quick to forgive each and every time that we repent, and He forgives the big sins and the little sins too.  Forgiveness is not simply a choice and an act of the will, it is your new nature and identity as someone who is made into the image of God.  It is His nature to forgive His children, so it is our nature to be forgiving of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  How we treat our spiritual family members tells the world a whole lot about whether or not the gospel has any real power in our lives and if it has really changed us.  Sure, we shouldn't' sin against each other to start with if the gospel is real, but when we do, because we will, how will we handle it?  Will we deal with each other in selfless love like how Jesus dealt with us, or will we we violate the word of 1 Corinthians 13?


1 Corinthians 13
English Standard Version

The Way of Love
13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

​13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

We are to love each other with this kind of gospel-centered love with which God has first loved us, for we cannot say that we love God and not show God's love to our brothers. (See 1 John 4:20 and many, many other verses in 1 John that talk about loving and forgiving our brothers as a litmus test for if we really love God and have been forgiven by Him).