“Repent or perish”

Read Luke 13:1-9

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The popular understanding of individual suffering was that it must be directly due to some sin in that person’s life. The book of Job had long since refuted this idea but it lingered on in people’s thinking and that’s the perception which Jesus addresses here (1-5). The same view is seen in the question about a man born blind (Jn.9:1-3). In both instances Jesus insists that such thinking is both wrong and misleading.

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Rather, such incidents are the consequences for all people of living in a fallen world (Gen.3:17-19). Jesus came in order to reverse the effects of the fall and bring about “the renewal of all things” (Mt.19:28; Rom.8:19-21). So for sufferers and non-sufferers alike, the same urgent response is needed: “Repent, or you too will all perish” (3,5; Mk.1:15).

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God doesn't want us to perish. In love he sent Jesus so that “whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (Jn.3:16). The parable of the fruitless fig-tree shows his patient longing for “everyone to come to repentance”, but the day of judgement must eventually take place (6-9; 2 Pet.3:9-11). Human tragedy is one of the signs of the times which calls us to get right with God (12:56).