Luke 9:26

Shall be ashamed (ἐπαισχυνθῇ) The feeling expressed by this word has reference to incurring dishonor or shame in the eyes of men. It is "the grief a mail conceives from his own imperfections considered with relation to the world taking notice of them; grief upon the sense of disesteem" ("South," cit. by Trench). Hence it does not spring out of a reverence for right in itself, but from fear of the knowledge and opinion of men. Thus in the use of the kindred noun αἰσχύνη, shame, in the New Testament. In Luke 14:9, the man who impudently puts himself in the highest place at the feast, and is bidden by his host to go lower down, begins with shame to take the lowest place; not from a right sense of his folly and conceit, but from being humiliated in the eyes of the guests. Thus, Hebrews 12:2, Christ is said to have "endured the shame," i.e., the public disgrace attaching to crucifixion. So, too, in the use of the verb, Romans 1:16 : "I am not ashamed of the gospel," though espousing its cause subjects me to the contempt of the Jew and of the Greek, to whom it is a stumbling-block and foolishness. Onesiphorus was not ashamed to be known as the friend of a prisoner (2 Timothy 1:16). Compare Hebrews 2:11; Hebrews 11:16. It is used of the Son of Man here by a strong metaphor. Literally, of course, the glorified Christ cannot experience the sense of shame, but the idea at the root is the same.

It will be as if he should feel himself disgraced before the Father and the holy angels in owning any fellowship with those who have been ashamed of him. His glory, etc Threefold glory. His own, as the exalted Messiah; the glory of God, who owns him as his dearly beloved son, and commits to him the judgment; and the glory of the angels who attend him.

Luke 9:26 . Καὶ — καὶ , and—and ) The mention of God and His creature is here conjoined. See Jdg 7:18 ; Jdg 7:20 ; 1 Samuel 12:18 ; Hebrews 12:23 ; Revelation 3:5 ; Revelation 14:10 .—[ τῶν ἁγίων ἀγγέλων , of the holy angels ) who by their attendance on Him as His retinue, shall subserve to the glorifying of GOD and of His Son.—V. g.]

Verse 26. - For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels . Here follows the punishment in the world to come. It consists in the Judge's solemn award to the man who has succeeded in saving his life in this world. The award is, "Depart from me: I know you not." Of such a selfish soul, who here has loved his own ease, and has declined all self-sacrifice, will the Son of man, in the day of his glory, be justly ashamed. The suffering Messiah thus completed his vivid picture of himself. Not always was he to suffer, or to wear the robe of humiliation. The Despised and Rejected would assuredly return with a glory indescribable, inconceivable. His assertion, advanced here, that he will return as Almighty Judge, is very remarkable. In the parallel passage in St. Matthew ( Matthew 16:13 ) it is put even more clearly. There Jesus asks his disciples, "Whom do men say that I , the Son of man , am?" In ver. 27 Jesus goes on to say, "The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his works." The lesson was very clear. His own might surely be content. Only let them be patient. Lo! in the poor rejected Rabbi now before them, going to his bitter suffering and his death, they were looking really on the awful form of the Almighty Judge of quick and dead.

26. ashamed of me, and of my words—The sense of shame is one of the strongest in our nature, one of the social affections founded on our love of reputation, which causes instinctive aversion to what is fitted to lower it, and was given us as a preservative from all that is properly shameful. When one is, in this sense of it, lost to shame, he is nearly past hope (Zec 3:5; Jer 6:15; 3:3). But when Christ and "His words"—Christianity, especially in its more spiritual and uncompromising features—are unpopular, the same instinctive desire to stand well with others begets the temptation to be ashamed of Him, which only the 'expulsive power' of a higher affection can effectually counteract. Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh, &c.—He will render to that man his own treatment; He will disown him before the most august of all assemblies, and put him to "shame and everlasting contempt" (Da 12:2). "Oh shame, to be put to shame before God, Christ, and angels!" [Bengel].