“When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”

The jarring conclusion of the Parable of the Unjust Judge

It goes without saying that Jesus knew how to teach and to tell stories in ways that were memorable to his hearers. It is almost banal to restate that. And he used quite a number of methods, such as humor, hyperbole, familiar episodes from everyday life, and more.

One method was to state a teaching in a way that jarred his hearers, that made them think, “Jesus said what?!?” His “Bread of Life” discourse in which he taught we must “eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood” was certainly one such occasion. (John 6:48ff) Another that gets much less attention is the Parable of the Unjust Judge.

One does not hear this parable taught much in most churches. And I wonder if even the Apostles and Evangelists considered this parable and Jesus’ explanation hard for most to hear, maybe too hard for a broad audience without a good teacher alongside them. But that is wild speculation on my part. Nonetheless, of the four Gospel writers, only St. Luke used it, at the beginning of chapter 18. And even Luke attempted to make it go down easier with a preface that understated Jesus’ teaching somewhat: “Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart…” Jesus certainly did teach that, but there is much more here and not all of it very encouraging.

Now the body of the parable goes down easy. It was surely enjoyable to his hearers, and I’ve always enjoyed its humor myself. There is a judge who is lazy, disrespectful and unjust, “who did not fear God, nor respect man” — and he knows it! He does not want to bother with a defrauded widow, but she keeps bothering him. So the judge echoes Jesus’ description and says to himself, “Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out.”

Jesus’ audience perhaps was having a good laugh when he then gave an odd exhortation — “Hear what the unjust judge says.” So Jesus would have them listen to a judge so lazy and unrighteous that he “did not fear God, nor respect man”? What good could such a man say? No doubt Jesus had his hearers’ full if perplexed attention now.

He then makes the point that if even that unjust judge will do justice in response to the persistent pleadings of a widow, then certainly God will “bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night.” This is not the only time Jesus teaches that if even an evil man will do a certain good thing, then certainly God can be trusted to do a good or better thing. A more famous example of that is Luke 11:11-13:

If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

Back to Luke 18, Jesus then says something harder to hear and which has also caused translators issues due to the difficult Greek. The King James has verse 7 as follows:

And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?

An alternative translation, typical of some modern translations, is found in the NASB 1995:

Now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them?

The difficulty in turn brings about interpretative issues. Is Jesus saying God will bear long with his people as they suffer injustice? Or is God bearing long with those who commit injustice to give them opportunity to repent? Or is Jesus suggesting God may delay in bringing about justice for his people?

Any of these interpretations would be in line with other Scripture. But without getting further into the weeds of translation and interpretation, I think it accurate to say Jesus is making the point that, although God will bring about justice for his people, it may seem that, like that unjust judge, he is slow in so doing. That although when the time comes on God’s schedule, “He will bring about justice for them quickly.” (v. 8)

But God’s timing is often different than our timing, is it not? So this parable may be both encouraging but also discouraging if we are imperfect in patience and faith — and who isn’t thus imperfect — and would rather God act on our schedule rather than his.

It is at this point that Jesus turns the question around in a jarring way. The issue is not whether God will be just and faithful to his people, but whether mankind and even the church on earth will be faithful to him.

However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth? (v. 8 NASB 1995)

I prefer what the NASB offers as a more literal translation: “the faith.”

This likely shook up his hearers because a common view of the Messiah was that he would lead his faithful people to victory over the Gentiles, over the Romans to be more specific. But Jesus is asking whether the Messiah will have any faithful to lead. Faithful Jews being few or gone when Messiah comes? I suspect this was a “Jesus said what?!?” moment indeed.

Jesus’ question remains a hard saying today because it brings into question the eschatology of Protestant Post-Millennialists and of Roman triumphalists, many of whom see the faithful church militant as many and welcoming and practically victorious already when Christ returns.

Now I respect many from both of the above camps. And maybe I’m not being entirely fair to their views. I welcome their explanations of Luke 18:8 in the comments. Nonetheless I think Jesus’ question implies that the faithful on Earth will be few and far between when Christ returns to judge the quick and the dead. And I’ve made the case that is a pattern of how God exercises judgement — when mankind or a people is so far gone that only a handful are faithful, that is when he rains down judgement while saving those few.

We would all rather the church on Earth be large and faithful when “the Son of Man comes.” After all, doesn’t Christ deserve a big welcome? So it is hardly pleasant to hear Jesus question whether that will be the case.

But, especially in the midst of injustice and other difficulties, we need to be reminded that the question is not whether God will be faithful to us, but whether we will be faithful to him. And we should allow that hard question to encourage us to remain faithful.

We also need to be reminded that we should not be as focused on success as we should be on faithfulness. Any number of saints in history saw their faithfulness end in failure by the world’s standards. Those who saw their churches and missions and even their own lives wiped off the face of the Earth are among these.

And there have been any number of times and places where the faithful are few and far between. I think Jesus is strongly hinting that will be the case at the end as well. But if we remain faithful as Noah and Lot and Jeremiah and Rahab did, that is laudable success in God’s eyes that brings great reward.

So let us not be discouraged by this hard question from Jesus but encouraged to stand faithful even if we stand alone — nay, especially if we stand alone.