Luke 17:25 - Exposition

But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation . But, and here again he repeats "as a solemn refrain to all his teaching," the warning to his own of the fearful end fast coming on him. If he is to come again with glory, he must first go away with shame, persecuted, forsaken, by the generation then living. The suffering Messiah must precede the glorified Messiah. After this rejection and suffering would begin the period alluded to above ( Luke 17:22 ) as the time when men should long to have him only for one day in their midst. During this period Messiah should continue invisible to mortal eye. How long this state was to continue, one century or—(eighteen have already passed), Jesus himself, in his humiliation, knew not; but he announced ( Luke 17:26-30 ) that a gloomy state of things on earth would be brought to a close by his reappearance. Ah! "when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?'