Luke 18:6

And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge saith. And shall not God avenge his elect, that cry to him day and night, and yet he is longsuffering over them? I say unto you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on earth?

Jesus here contrasted the unrighteous judge's hearing the widow's plea with God's hearing the prayers of his elect. Therefore, the unjust judge stands for God in the analogy. No moral problem is involved in this, because Jesus frequently used such analogies, not only to show similarities but to point up the contrast also.

The concept of a suffering and persecuted church is also evident in these verses, making this parable a prophecy of the persecutions and tribulations that should come upon the church in ages to come, looking forward to so remote a time as the Second Coming (Luke 18:8).

He is longsuffering over them ... This is a caution against expecting a sudden answer to all prayers, no matter how persistent. As Wesley said, "God does not immediately put an end, either to the wrongs of the wicked or the sufferings of good men."[9]

Shall not God avenge his elect ... The power and wrath of the eternal God are ever against those who persecute his people. Lactantius has twenty pages of the most interesting discussions of the awful punishments, judgments, and miseries that befell the famed persecutors of the church, giving in detail the things that happened to Nero, Domitian, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, Diocletian, etc.[10] As Dummelow said, Jesus' words here were literally fulfilled "in the calamities which overtook the Jews and the chief heathen persecutors of the Christians."[11]

Shall he find faith on the earth ...? These words are variously understood, but there seems to be a definite foretelling of the decline of faith before the end. Trench thought that:

We have other grounds for believing that the church, at that last moment, will be reduced to a little remnant; yet the point is here, not that the faithful will be few, but that the faith even of the faithful will have almost failed.[12]

Wesley saw this as a statement that, when Jesus shall appear, "how few true believers will be found on earth."[13] As Lamar asked, "The JUDGE will be ready, but will the WIDOW be there?"[14]

The parable of the unjust judge was to teach persistence in prayer; but Jesus immediately gave another parable to show that something more than persistence is required for prayers to be answered.

[9] John Wesley, Notes on the New Testament (Naperville, Illinois: Alec. R. Allenson, Inc. 1950), p. 271.

[10] Lactantius, "Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died". The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1951). Vol. VII. pp. 301-322.

[11] J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 763.

[12] Richard C. Trench, op. cit., p. 493.

[13] John Wesley, op. cit., p. 271.

[14] J. S. Lamar, The New Testament Commentary (Cincinnati, Ohio: Chase and Hall, 1877), Vol. II, p. 224.