Verse 50
50. A baptism The baptism is the terrible paroxysm of inward agony. There is no such antithesis here as some find between the fire of strife (or as some say, of the Holy Spirit) and water of baptism. The fire is indeed the strife which the Gospel will eventuate. The baptism is the passion of the garden and the cross which he was about to undergo. (See note on Matthew 20:22.)
Straitened Compressed and grasped as if by a pressure enclosing on every side.
Our Lord now (Luke 12:51-55) shows that his present conflict with these Pharisees and its consummation are but the type of the more extended conflict in which all are to be engaged on one side or the other, and continue so until his second coming. Next (Luke 12:56-57) he earnestly invokes them to be attentive to the omens by which they were warned to choose the right in the great moral battle; and last (Luke 12:58-59) he presses all to a quick decision in view of the final magistrate, judge, officer, and prison. See notes on Matthew 10:34-38.
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