Luke 4

Division 2. (Luke 4:14-44; Luke 5:1-39; Luke 6:1-49; Luke 7:1-50; Luke 8:1-56; Luke 9:1-62; Luke 10:1-42; Luke 11:1-54; Luke 12:1-59; Luke 13:1-35; Luke 14:1-35; Luke 15:1-32; Luke 16:1-31; Luke 17:1-37; Luke 18:1-34.)Salvation. The division of Mark and Luke is very similar. We shall find also that of John to correspond essentially. First, we have the Lord presented to us personally, in that character which the particular Gospel exhibits; then His work in active ministry among men; and finally the sacrificial work and its results. Here, as Man; and in the nearness implied by this, the former Gospels having shown us atonement in its full substitutionary character wrought out, as in the sin- and trespass-offering, we find in the second division the salvation so accomplished ministered to men in a way we could not have had before. Not that the fulness of what is in John is reached. The truths of new birth, eternal life, the gift of the Spirit, and other things, are lacking, as John (or the Lord in John’s Gospel) shows them to us.

There is an approach made to these; God and man meet together; the prodigal is in the Father’s house; the fatted calf is on the table: things which have made some of old to suppose -with the known relationship of Luke to Paul -that it was this Gospel which Paul called his own (Romans 16:25). This goes too far, but the doctrinal connection is yet evident. We shall have many opportunities of realizing this.

Luke 4:14-6

Subdivision 1. (Luke 4:14-44; Luke 5:1-39; Luke 6:1-49.)In sovereign grace, and divine power. The sovereignty of grace in salvation is the very first thing presented here. God alone could have thought of it: from His heart alone it could have come. Even so, and with all the suitability there is in it to man’s condition, it is naturally distasteful to him, for he believes in himself, and does not willingly own the truth of his condition. Hence God must act for Himself as is implied in new birth: for who was ever born of his own will? And Scripture directly negatives this as to spiritual birth (John 1:13). But thus salvation being of God is effected from first to last in the power of God. How great a comfort for the soul convicted of its own evil, folly and feebleness? God “worketh in you the willing and the doing of His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13, Gk.). The work in us is secured by the same grace that has accomplished the work for us, in the value of which we stand unchangeably. All is provided for equally, the covenant of promise being God’s “I will” throughout.

1. (1) This part begins with a foreshadow at Nazareth of what is soon to be fulfilled in Israel’s history. The Lord is seen in the place where He was brought, up and according to His custom He enters the synagogue on the sabbath day. There He stands up to read, and the book of Isaiah being given Him, He opens at the sixty-first chapter, and applies the words of the Man anointed with the Spirit of Jehovah to Himself. It is clear how accordant with the character of Luke the quotation is. It is the “Mediator between God and man; the Man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5), whose voice is heard here; and it is as come up out of Jordan; where He has pledged Himself to a baptism to death far different, that the Spirit has come upon Him for His work. He declares here in the first words of His ministry, as Luke gives it to us, the purport of that anointing.

The preaching of glad tidings to the poor comes first, and gives character to all the rest. When man is in the place of need he can receive the gospel. When he is consciously a sinner, captive to the sin which he cannot, when he will, renounce, the gospel brings him release. The blind receive their sight. Those bruised in fetters liberty.* It is in fact “the acceptable year of the Lord”; the jubilee of God; fuller and more blessed than the law ever proclaimed in Israel.
Now in His Person this had come to them. He was the source of all, the spring of grace and salvation. Where the prophet goes on to “the day of vengeance of our God,” the Lord stops short in the middle of the sentence: grace had hastened to anticipate the judgment; although for those who refuse the one there will at last be the other. But judgment lingers with reluctant feet, while those of grace are winged with desire. (2) They heard and wondered: could not but own that these were gracious words. Would they receive them, then? That is a very different thing. They were not the poor, the captive, blind or fetter-bruised. They were wonderful words indeed of Joseph’s son! How had He learned this wisdom? and how had He the boldness to take such a place as He was taking?

After all, the question was of Him and not of them. Who was He? But they had heard of miracles wrought at Capernaum: let the physician heal himself; what they had heard of elsewhere let Him repeat in His own city, to which His wonders naturally belonged, and the fame of the prophet. For it had become a proverb that out of Galilee there arose none; and as to Nazareth it was a question, could any good be expected of it? Well, if He had such power, let Him exercise it there where there was need and the occasion called. After all, with all the unbelief that might be in it, it seems natural to ask, why the Lord did not take this means of breaking down their unbelief; why, if He were doing miracles elsewhere, why not here? But He, seeing more deeply, sees He is rejected. Even while they wonder at His gracious words, they have no need of them: and of what use were miracles, save to confirm that of which they had no need? It was a case, too, coming under a rule which -so alike are men; so inveterate the evil in them -could be deemed invariable. “No prophet is acceptable in his own country.” And this seems as if it were a comment upon their question; “Is not this the son of Joseph?” God acting in a son of Joseph! God speaking with so familiar a voice, and disguising Himself so in nature and common life! That seems impossible; self-contradictory even; startling too by bringing God so near; unwelcome, alas, in the same proportion. But, however men judge of it, God will be as God, acting sovereignly as He pleases, while in goodness, because goodness is His nature, but not tied to show it according to any of the thoughts of men. What had their history shown as to this? In the awful times of Elijah, when for their sins famine swept through the land for three years and six months; -or in times succeeding, when Elisha was in Elijah’s place: -who were they to whom it pleased God to show mercy? There were many widows in Israel, when Elijah was sent to the Sidonian widow! many lepers in Israel unhealed, when Naaman the Syrian was cleansed! Israel might in those days have said to Elijah, “Do these things in thine own country,” while yet they had shown no desire after God, but had cast Him off; and now grace rejected might go out to others. There were the poor, the blind, the captives of sin elsewhere, -even among the Gentiles: men who had need of Him, if they had none; and who, finding that need met in Him, would realize in Him more than “the son of Joseph.” But the men of Nazareth are only roused into fury by such words. They seek to kill Him by hurling Him from the brow of the hill on which the city is built; but He passes through the midst of them and goes His way. How plain a foreshadow of the rejection that waited Him at the hands of the people, and of the way in which the death to which they destined Him availed nothing to hinder those purposes for which He stooped even to death also. And so grace went out to the Gentiles. 2. (1) We have had, then, Christ as the Source of blessing, and the character of the blessing which He is come to convey to men. But if blessing be thus prepared for him, the enemy in whose hand he is must be met and despoiled of his prey. This, therefore, is what we find next, the story which we have already had in Mark 1:21-28, of the demoniac in the synagogue at Capernaum. Very significant it is that the demon is not here in the tombs or in the mountains, but parading his victim in the midst of the concourse of men; and even in the synagogue, as if he would make good his title to him in the presence of God Himself. But under the power of the Word, which is the sword of the Spirit to expose and vanquish him, he is made to realize the Holy One of God, and quails as before his destroyer. He is silenced and made to come out, with one last expression of impotent rage, which only manifests the more the power over him; and amazement seizes upon the multitude who behold it, and spread His fame throughout the region round about. (2) He enters into Simon Peter’s house and the devil’s power meets Him in another form. The mother-in-law of Simon is ill with a great fever. He rebukes it, and it leaves her; and immediately she is restored and able to minister to them. (3) And now the crowds gather, bringing those sick with all manner of diseases; and the power of God is manifest in healing all without exception. Nothing is too hard for Him. The earth is ready to put on again its paradisaic garb, and the devil to be banished out of it: so at least it well might seem. There is love also equal to the power displayed. The people, well content to have such an one among them, would fain prevent His leaving them; but it is not enough for Him that seekers should find Him, He must be the Seeker, and seek everywhere the sheep that are astray from their Shepherd. All the cities of Israel must hear the Voice of Him that is come after them. The Kingdom of God must be every where proclaimed. That which men most coveted, the miracles of healing, were but the attendant signs of divine authority once more ready to be openly established over a willing-hearted people. Thus alone could there be healing indeed. 3. Naturally we are led on in this way to the inward deliverance, the spiritual healing by which sanctification to God is attained. This we shall find commonly conveyed to us, as so often in the Gospels, in terms of the outward miracle, the clearest and most concise way, no doubt, in which it could be done in these cases. Figures though they are, the Christian understanding can hardly fail to realize their significance. (1) The first story here, though from its conclusion surely coincident with the call of the first disciples in the previous Gospels, is yet in the main part peculiar to Luke, as it is surely in fullest harmony with its character. It is the record of a soul brought into the presence of God; at once drawn and searched out by the light of it. There is nothing in the nature of the miracle itself that is in the least calculated to terrify or produce any emotion of fear whatever, but the contrary. They who have toiled all night and caught nothing, find now, upon casting their nets once more at the Lord’s bidding, a multitude of fish which fill their own and their partners, vessels till they are ready to sink with the weight. When Simon sees it he is amazed; and falling down at Jesus, knees, he cries, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man; O Lord.” It is the sense of the divine presence, revealed by the miracle, that has stricken through Simon Peter, and brought him to the consciousness of his condition. He cleaves to Him, even while he says, depart. Conscience and heart are at strife within him. But he does not flee: how should he flee from Him who is what he realizes Him to be -who has searched out the paths of the sea and his heart together? Nor does the Lord leave him in doubt as to the grace that can take up the sinful: “Fear not,” He says to Simon; “from henceforth thou shalt catch men.” The grace thus shown is not simply the reception of sinners. Christ thus known in the heart associates the redeemed with Himself in His message of mercy to men. (2) In the two miracles following, the need that is to be ministered to is more fully exposed. The leper and the paralytic show us the corruption and impotence produced by sin; the former being the well-known type of sin in the Old Testament, in its subtle invasion; its certain spread, its contagion; its breaking up of human relations, its banishment from God (Leviticus 13:1-59.) Man was powerless in the presence of this malignant scourge. The mere touch of one who had it was defilement. Every leper was known; and had to make himself known to all around him, that none might come in contact with him. Moreover the removal of it was one of the signs by which was proclaimed the God-sent deliverer of Israel from the oppression of the Egyptians. Nowhere then could there be found a more suitable means for the manifestation of His power than in cleansing the leper; and here was one in that awful state of isolation, “a man full of leprosy.” This is Luke’s description; going beyond the former Gospels: it was not in mere incipiency, but revealing itself in all its terrible reality. But “when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and besought Him, saying, Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.” A sorrowful case when one who confesses the power of Jesus to heal him, can doubt His will; and yet, in the case of sin how common! But the Lord would have none question. He does not merely speak, He goes further, and with a touch at once breaks through the barrier of law, and removes that which the law could only brand, not remedy. “I will: be thou cleansed.” And immediately the leprosy has departed from him. Now the very priest of the law must pronounce him clean; and Jesus sends the healed man to him for that purpose. Leprosy speaks of the out-break of the flesh, -the nature of the unrenewed man; but which remains in the renewed man also, and may, alas, break out of him. This last is, in fact, what the type in Leviticus directly speaks of, while leprosy in itself may speak of either. Christ is, in either case, the only and all-sufficient remedy. In John 13:1-38 He takes our feet into His blessed hands to cleanse them from all the defilements of the way, and this is the touch of Jesus for the Christian. For the sinner also there is the touch of the Samaritan-Saviour, come where he is; of which Luke will tell us much at another time: a story which unites in some sense the leper with the paralytic in him who fell among the thieves. The aspects vary of that which is fundamentally the same: the meeting of divine power and love with human need and guilt. The experience of how many can interpret and apply a history like this. (3) We pass on to the paralytic, in whom the impotence produced by sin is clearly shown us. The Lord, therefore, first assures him of forgiveness -“Thy sins are forgiven thee,” and makes the power to “rise and walk” the token to others of the reality of what he has received. And this is the spiritual order. Both this and the previous miracle we have had in the first two Gospels, and in Mark, as here, together. In Matthew they are separated, but with as distinct a purpose as to each. The divine glory of Christ in all this part is fully manifest. 4. We have now what with little variation is common to the three Synoptists, the dispensational change which this open display of divine grace involves. Matthew indeed puts an interval between that which takes place at Levi’s house and the contention as to the Sabbath; while Mark and Luke present them in connection. The call of Matthew (or Levi) seems also historically to have been some time before the feast made by him. Each evangelist uses his material according to his purpose, rather than in mere chronological order. The connection between the Sabbath question and the displacement of the legal ritual which was impending is evident, and so it is that they are brought together here. (1) The call of Levi to the apostleship must have been startling to a Jew. The tax-gatherer was hated as the symbol of foreign dominion; hated for his often unscrupulous exactions, and hated more than all if (as was here the case) it was a Jew who lent himself to what was considered the oppression of his own people. But “tax-gatherers and sinners,” thus associated in the language of the multitude, followed the Baptist, while Pharisees and Sadducees turned away from him; and so was it now in the Lord’s case. Levi follows Him with unhesitating promptitude, leaving all he had. And the feast that he makes Him is furnished with guests which show how fully he has entered into his Master’s mind. But the scribes and Pharisees as naturally murmur: why eat and drink, they ask, with such as these? The Lord’s answer is as simple as can be, and as sufficient. He is a physician looking for the sick; and not, therefore, as disregarding the need men had of repentance, but to bring them to it. It is the goodness of God known that brings men to it. (2) Then they raise a question about fasting. John’s disciples fasted; as, with the message that he brought the people, well was there need. The Pharisees too had not been wrong in this, if only they had penetrated the true meaning of the law, which John had but emphasized. The voice in the wilderness had announced however the coming of One who would be the Bridegroom of His people (John 3:29): how unsuitable would be the voice of mourning then! But of this the dead ritualism of the Pharisee knew nothing. Fasting was meritorious in itself according to their thought, and Christ in the truth of what He was had no place in them. Thus Israel’s Bridegroom, already in their midst, would, as rejected, be taken from them; and then indeed would the sons of the bride-chamber fast.*
But there was another thing, for the old covenant points beyond itself, and that which was peculiar to it was therefore destined to pass away and be replaced by the new. So opposite were these that the two could not agree. The garment of human righteousness according to the law, however incompetent it might be, could not be patched with the “righteousness which is of God through faith” (Philippians 3:9). The old wine-skins of the Jewish institutions could not confine the free expansive spirit of the new covenant which was already showing itself. But the opposition to it showed also that with man naturally the law was more to his taste: he who was still drinking of the old wine would not immediately desire the new. (3) The two incidents which raise the question of the Sabbath are given in almost precisely the same way in the three Gospels. In Matthew they are in different connections from those in which they are found in Mark and Luke; but in all their purport is the same: Christ the Lord of the Sabbath being rejected, they can claim no Sabbath; just as when; David the anointed king of Israel being a fugitive from the wrath of Saul, the show-bread became common food. Alas, Israel in a little while would keep their Sabbath with the Lord of it, crucified at their hands, lying in His guarded grave! And at all times had mere ritualism lost the spirit of the law while retaining the form of it. The love to man which the seventh day rest breathed had passed into a rigid exaction which rather slew than saved. In the story of the withered hand this is fully manifest, and in the miracle which is wrought, the Lord brings in the power of God to bear witness against it. But the Pharisees and scribes are only the more roused to madness, and commune one with another what they might do to Jesus. 5. Thus He is more distinctly than before rejected of Israel in the persons of their leaders, and takes His place as such. In answer to their attitude He gathers His disciples round Him, and chooses from them twelve as His “apostles,” or “sent ones,” to be the witnesses and heralds of the new Kingdom coming in. In their presence and that of a great multitude as well of His disciples as of those from all the country round about attracted by His power and grace, He declares the blessedness, responsibilities, and recompense of those that cleave to Him, the heirs of the Kingdom. They are in a scene characterized by His rejection, and sufferers for His sake, only thus the more blessed, not the less. The end would declare it. What we have here is, no doubt, “the sermon on the mount,” but with abridgment as well as additions, according to Luke’s purpose. The remnant character of those that are with Him is very strongly emphasized. (1) Christ is here the source of authority and the centre of power. As He had already told the people of Nazareth, grace will not be stopped in its outflow by the opposition of men. “The Man Christ Jesus,” Himself the expression of eternal counsels, in the sweet dependence of perfect humanity, and the perfect intimacy of the Son with the Father, goes up to God upon the mountain; and continues there all night in prayer to God. It is the anticipation of the place He has now taken, and all that follows is the fruit of that intercession. But thus the wisdom of God which is in it appears in the form of human weakness. He names the twelve, and among them is a traitor. The rest are fishermen and what not; not a sign among them of what naturally we should take for power; and the three most prominent, frequently made so, as it would seem, by their lack of apprehension of His mind and fellowship with Him.

We see plainly that without Him they can do nothing. He is all of wisdom to them, all of power. They, like the crowd that swarm to Him from the regions round, are joined to Him by their absolute need of Him, their entire dependence on Him. A Judas even must serve Him. How we see the Christianity that is to spring out of this! The whole of Christianity is Christ: “Christ is all and in all” (Colossians 3:11). (2) We see this strikingly in what follows here, in which His disciples are separated from all the world about them by this fact, that they are His. The world is in opposition to Him and to His. It hates them, separates them from it, casts out their name as evil for the Son of man’s sake. Thus for them it has nothing. They are the “poor,” the hungry, the weepers, the afflicted in it. Yet well may they rejoice: for their reward is great in heaven; on earth they but continue the line of the prophets rejected by the world from of old. On the other hand, and for the same reason, those who are satisfied with it, and the world with them, have their part in the woes that are coming on the world. And He cannot leave this to inference, for He is the Saviour of sinners and His heart goes after them: in its very denunciations grace overflows. But this changes nothing as to the final end: rather does it assure us how fixed and unalterable that end must be. (3) But the Lord goes on to speak of what the conduct of His disciples is to be in the midst of a world in opposition to them. To those whose ears are open to His words He says, “Love your enemies; do good to those that hate you; bless those that curse you; pray for those that despitefully use you.” This rule of returning good for evil is that which He has so bountifully illustrated in His own person; and of which the Cross is the supreme example. The precept of non-resistance which follows it we have already remarked upon in going through Matthew. The bountiful spirit which becomes those who owe their all to the free gift of God is enforced in the words, “Give to every one that asketh thee,” -words which surely require the wisdom inspired by divine love to guide in their application. This part closes with the general principle that “as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.” (4) The way of the world is put in contrast with this, the world being quite capable of returning love for love, of doing good to those who do good to them, of lending with the hope of getting back as much. But to love and do good and lend without hope of return: this would be conduct suited to the sons of the Most High; because He is kind to the unthankful and the evil. (5) Thus we are to be imitators of God as dear children; and under a Father’s holy government also, according to which the measure meted will be measured out; and this as what both suits the nature of God, and the truest interests of His people also. It is evident, therefore, that rewards are not intended to be denied, nor yet disregarded: for that which God gives it cannot but be of God that it should have place in our thoughts and in our hearts. Seeing what we are, this needs and receives careful guarding. We find it so again and again: -guarded, but maintained in this very way (Matthew 19:27-30, Matthew 20:20-28, notes). He gains who for Christ’s sake loses; but not for gain’s sake. (6) The “blind” are primarily, no doubt, the Jewish leaders; but the follower will not escape the ditch by being simply a follower: for the truth speaks for itself to him who has ears to hear. He who gives himself up to another’s leadership absolutely, has his conscience not before God, but before man; and even the Lord bases His title to be heard upon the truth of what He spoke: “If I say the truth, why do ye not believe Me?” (John 8:46.) That to which a man yields himself necessarily moulds him. If then he surrenders himself to the teacher of error, he will not be above his teacher, but, if he is perfect, be only like him. On the other hand, if evil be detected in another’s eye -in his way of regarding things (and here the teacher of error seems still primarily pointed at) -one must take care that there be no lack of self-judgment as to one’s own. Evil must first be judged within before it can be judged outside; and this will give tenderness and compassion; as well as clear sightedness. Judging without self-judgment is but hypocrisy. And this self-judgment is always of the “beam” as compared with the “mote” in others. For what can we know of others compared with what we may and should know of ourselves? And then the evil fruit we find is but the sign of an evil tree: thorns grow no figs, nor brambles grapes. Thus true self-judgment sets aside self altogether. We do not judge to establish our own righteousness, nor as rejoicing in the evil, but as rejoicing with the good: we learn to “take forth the precious from the vile,” because the good is “precious.” (7) Useless indeed is the profession of the lips, -the saying, “Lord, Lord,” except the life confirm it. Not that the best life will justify before God, or save in the day when all that can be will be shaken. But it is evidence, nevertheless, that Christ is the foundation of the soul, -of a house built secure against all the storms that can assail it. Faith in Christ must, of course, be real; but the more real the faith in other things, the more complete is the delusion, the surer and more fatal the ruin that awaits one. “The ruin of that house is great.”