Luke 6:47-49 meaning

The parallel Gospel account for Luke 6:47-49 is Matthew 7:24-27.

Jesus ends His teaching to His disciples in Luke 6 with a parable regarding the consistency of the state of a man’s heart and his outward actions. In Matthew’s parallel account, this is the familiar parable of the wise man and the foolish man who built their houses on different foundations:

Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: (v 47).

Through this teaching, Jesus says He will show His disciples what a person is like who comes to Him and hears His words and acts on them. This verse reveals several truths to us. First, Christ's offer is available to any and all who approach Him. It also shows that everyone has the ability to act on and follow Jesus’ teachings. Jesus did not say these words to make men learned. He said them to make men wise. A wise man does not simply understand truth. A wise man acts and does according to that understanding. He is what James describes as "an effectual doer":

"One who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does."
(James 1:25)

he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built (v 48).

The one who hears and acts on Jesus's words may be compared to a man who built his house on the rock. A house is a place of dwelling. It has personal significance and particular interest for the man who lives in it. It not only holds all of his possessions; a man's house reflects his social station. Within Jesus's parable, his house signifies a man's life and all that man holds dear.

Architectural structures were (and are) built on foundations of solid rock. Solid rock is not easily moved. It provides stability for the walls and roof of the building. Without a rocky foundation, over time the ground will shift, and the house built on it will crack, break apart, and fall. To avoid calamity, a wise man builds his house on a foundation of rock. As foundations of rock are to houses, so are the words and teachings of Jesus to everyone's lives. If the house of our lives is built on the foundation of Jesus, the storms and trials we face will not destroy it or cause it to fall (2 Corinthians 4:7-12).

But while Jesus's metaphor applies to the floods we face in this life, it also speaks directly to the day of judgment. The scene He depicts in this parable is an obvious allusion to God's judgment in the days of Noah (Genesis 6:11-13, 7:17-24). And when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it. When God judges our life (like a flood hitting a house), the only houses that will not fall are the ones that have been built and founded on the rock of Jesus Christ's words.

But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great” (v 49).

Jesus contrasts the house of a wise man with the house of a foolish man. The difference is not the house, so much as the foundation beneath it. This too alludes to what Christ has been saying about external works of righteousness, which are visible to all like a house's roof and walls, and internal righteousness and integrity of the heart, which is invisible to everyone but God, like the house's foundation.

But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation. Matthew’s parallel Gospel account describes this faulty foundation as being built on sand. Sand is a terrible foundation. It is always moving and is easily washed away in a flood. And when it moves it causes whatever is built on it to crack and fall. And the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed.

Jesus adds for emphasis—and the ruin of that house was great. The fool's house was not just damaged or lost a wing. It was no more.

Nearly every aspect of the house of the two men is identical. Their houses are the same, the rains that fall on them are the same, the floods that rise against them are the same, the winds that blow against them are the same. There are only two differences—their foundations and their endurance.

The only thing distinguishing the wise man and the foolish man in this life is whether or not they act on the words of Jesus. They both heard His words, but only a wise man takes them to heart and lives them with integrity. A foolish man hears Jesus's words but does not act on them (v 49). He is like the "hearers" who James writes about, those "who delude themselves":

"In humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was."
(James 1:21-24)

Let us be disciples who live with integrity as we act on the words we have heard from Jesus.