Luke 5

Chapter 5. The First Message of the Son of ManJesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. (Luke 4:14-16)The remarkable incidents attending the birth, baptism and temptation of our Lord, as recorded by Luke, would naturally prepare us to expect some unusual opening of His public ministry. And we are not disappointed. Like the frontispiece on the opening page of a volume, the incident of our text stands out in bold relief. How utterly human the picture is! Like all the other pictures which Luke gives us of the Son of Man—His coming to His own country to begin His ministry and to the city where He had been brought up; His claiming in humble dependence the direction of the Holy Spirit as He gives His message; His modest recognition of the Holy Scriptures as the authority and foundation of His address, and then the character of this message with its infinite tenderness and grace and its broad and sweeping appeal to humanity with all its needs—all this coupled with His rejection by His own people gives to the incident of our text a peculiar propriety as the opening chapter of Luke’s account of the wondrous ministry that was to be so broad in its scope and so gracious in its mercy and love. We might well inscribe over the scene the touching words of another evangelist, “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him” (John 1:11).

Section I: the Background

Section I—the BackgroundHe Began at Nazareth Let us note the fact that He began at Nazareth, His own city. The evangelists, Matthew and Mark, described a visit by our Lord to Nazareth much later in His ministry. We find the account in the sixth chapter of Mark and the 13th chapter of Matthew. Most of the harmonists of the Gospel identify that visit with the one recorded by Luke in our text. But it is contrary to Luke’s custom to insert incidents out of their chronological order. He usually follows the law of sequence more exactly than any of the evangelists, and it would not be like him to strain a point in this record even for the sake of introducing this striking scene as a frontispiece in his Gospel. Further, when we look at the facts related in Matthew and Mark, we find them quite different from the incident in Luke. They tell us that the Lord performed several miracles of a minor character at this time and “he could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them” (Mark 6:5). The accounts of these evangelists also show that the disciples were with Him. Luke’s narrative makes no mention of any disciples and it seems quite certain that if they had been there, they would have interposed in some way to protect Him from the violence of the mob who tried to hurl Him from the brow of the hill on which the city was built. We are therefore justified, we believe, in regarding this as an earlier visit to Nazareth quite near the beginning of His ministry and probably just after His visit to Cana and the brief tarry in Galilee that followed, just before His journey to Jerusalem. Probably He left Capernaum for Nazareth, taking His mother with Him and leaving her there while He journeyed down to Jerusalem. How tender the interest connected with His first message to His own people, and how full of significance for us in connection with our responsibility to be faithful witnesses to our own family circle and immediate friends. Have we been true to our testimony there? Perhaps, like Him, we will be rejected, but nonetheless we should be faithful even if it must be as true of us as of Him, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown” (Luke 4:24). In the Spirit Quite as remarkable is His dependence upon the Holy Spirit in this, His first message. He does not come announcing His own independent authority, but He takes the place of one dependent upon the same great Teacher to whom we all may look for our endowment of power for service. There is something very striking in the voluntary dependence of the Lord Jesus upon the power of the Holy Spirit in all His work and teaching. Surely, if He did not venture upon His ministry without the baptism of the Spirit and did not take a step except in dependence upon Him, we are guilty of the highest presumption should we attempt the slightest ministry in our human strength. How near it brings us to Him and Him to us, to find Him thus leaning upon the same Arm that sustains us in all our service. We cannot fail to note the effects of the Spirit’s baptism as manifested in our Lord. “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips” (Luke 4:22). The Spirit-filled worker will always have the same token, the unction of the Holy Spirit as shown in every tone and expression as a Spirit of graciousness, gentleness and power. How may we expect to receive this power? Surely, by truly expecting it and claiming it by faith. There was no uncertain sound in the confession of His faith. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me” (Luke 4:18), He could say, and we too must claim this divine endowment as positively and confess it as steadfastly. Are we thus working in the power of the Spirit as well as walking in fellowship with Him? They that look for Him will not look in vain. His Dependence Upon the Holy Scriptures Not only did He look to the Spirit to guide and inspire Him, but He took the Scriptures as the foundation of His messages. Already He had proved its power in the hour of temptation, and now He leans upon it as He goes forth to His work. Other teachers are accustomed, in founding a new religion, to bring out a new Bible; so we have the Bibles of Mohammedanism, Mormonism and similar delusions. Jesus Christ identified Himself with the Old Testament Scriptures, and on this occasion began His ministry by taking the prophetic scroll, from which they were accustomed to hear their morning lesson, and reading the very passage which was fulfilled that day in their ears in His own personal ministry. We notice His familiarity with the prophetic Word. “Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written” (Luke 4:17). He knew where to find it. He was familiar with His Bible. Oh, that each of us, like Him, might be “a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). The modern preacher soon exhausts his Bible and goes to the newspapers or the scientists for his sensational messages. The wise preacher will always preach the Word. Not only so, but He also knew how to apply the Word to the occasion and the audience. “Today,” He said, looking directly in the faces of His hearers, “this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). His preaching was pointed, personal and intensely practical. So let ours be. Let us aim at men and women and let us strike hard at human consciences and hearts and let us expect immediate decisions and results.

Section II: the Message

Section II—the MessageWhat a wonderful message it was! How fitting to the scope and purpose of Luke’s Gospel! How different from the great sermon recorded by Matthew in the opening of his Gospel! That was suited for the Jew and the Gospel of the Kingdom. It was all about “his kingdom and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). There is nothing of this in Luke, the Gospel to the Gentiles and the sinner. The keynote here is all grace, mercy and salvation. The Gospel of the Jubilee The first note and the supreme note in it is joyfulness. It is a message of hope to a sorrowing, despairing world. It has been well called the Gospel of the Jubilee. Its undertone and its echo are gladness, victory, deliverance from all the evils that oppress humanity. It is the “sovereign balm for every wound.” It is the remedy for the ills of humanity. Back of it stands the splendid figure of the Year of Jubilee. This is just the meaning of the closing clause to “proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:19). Every 50 years there came to ancient Israel a great festival that lasted a whole year long. All labor ceased and the earth abundantly supplied, the preceding year, enough for two. Nature rested, man rested and every home and synagogue and sanctuary and spot became the scene of festival and gladness. With its early dawn, the jubilee trumpets rang out upon every mountain top and summoned the people to a year of rejoicing; and, as the year wore on, you might have seen many a family moving back to the vine-clad cottage which they had been compelled to lose years before for some mortgage debt. You might have seen sons and daughters traveling home and welcomed by rejoicing fathers and mothers as they came back from the slavery to which they had been consigned as hostages for some family debt. You might have seen bonds and mortgages, promissory notes and liens torn up or burned to ashes while every debt was canceled, every slave set free, every prison opened and every lost heritage restored. All this Jesus Christ came to fulfill in a higher and grander sense by proclaiming an everlasting jubilee for all who accept His grace. Surely, such a gospel is indeed humanity’s greatest boon and the announcement of such a message a fitting and glorious inauguration of the gospel of the Son of Man. Forgiveness of Sins Coming down to particulars, the first great blessing of this jubilee is the cancellation of our debt, the forgiveness of our sins and the discharge for us of all our obligations to a broken law and an offended God. Christ has come to set us free from the law, not only from its curse and penalty, but from its bondage as demanding our righteousness, giving us instead His better righteousness and His indwelling and enabling, so that “the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:4). Have we entered into this glorious liberty? Have we taken Him for all our liabilities and responsibilities and are we proving that noble Magna Charta of the children of God, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36)? Freedom From Sin He brings freedom from the bondage of sin, “freedom for the prisoners… to release the oppressed” (Luke 4:18). The sinner is helpless as well as guilty. He has gone upon the enemy’s ground and has been taken captive. This does not lessen his accountability, because he is responsible for having put himself in this condition, but he is nonetheless helpless. Sinful men are spoken of in the Scriptures as those in “the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:26), and those whom “[God] gave… over to a depraved mind” (Romans 1:28). Of course, they think they can do as they please; but they find when it comes to the test that they are “unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin” (Romans 7:14). One of the chains of sin is the force of habit. Another is an evil nature and a heart whose preference is for evil. We find an innate tendency to sin developed in the youngest children. From all this, Christ comes to set us free. “The law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). The Holy Spirit puts within us a new heart, new thoughts, new desires and preferences and then He puts within us also new strength, His own power to enable us to obey these higher impulses. He breaks the power of canceled sin; He sets the prisoner free. The bondage of sickness is also implied in this passage. “Them that are bruised” (Luke 4:18) literally means, “Them that are diseased.” Sickness and death follow sin by the operation of the same great law. From sickness Christ set us free by His healing power, and from death He has delivered us by His resurrection, which is the pledge and guarantee of ours. Oh, what a glorious announcement to a death-doomed and fallen race! What else can for a moment compare with the lofty claims and infinite and eternal possibilities of our great redemption? Our Lost Inheritance The jubilee gave back their lost inheritances. The home that had been forfeited for debt was returned to its ancient owners and the inalienable possessions of the family were restored. Christ has come to give us back all which we, through sin, have lost—lost years, lost opportunities, lost powers, lost hopes, a lost heaven and our lost loved ones. The curse of sin is more than canceled, and in Him we boast “more blessings than our father lost.” The Grace of God The one underlying thought in all this glorious proclamation is grace. It is the revealing of the heart of God. It is a proclamation of infinite help to a helpless, hopeless world. “The year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:19) just means the day of grace, the offer of mercy, the opportunity of salvation for all who will receive and believe. It finds its parallel in that beautiful expression of the apostle in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation” (Luke 6:2). Literally, it means, “Now is the time of loving welcome; now is the day of salvation.” The most noticeable thing about this paragraph is that the Lord stopped in the middle of a sentence and omitted the last clause of the quotation from Isaiah. That clause is “and the day of vengeance of our God” (Isaiah 61:2). He did not read this because the time for that had not yet come. The day of grace is a great parenthesis, but some time soon that parenthesis will end and the prophecy will be finished, and on a slumbering world will burst “the day of vengeance of our God.” Oh, that we might catch the spirit of this glorious evangel and go forth to ring it out from all the mountaintops of earth until the glad jubilee of the world will have fully come with the coming of the King Himself in His millennial glory! The illustrations which our Lord adds in His sermon at Nazareth are most significant. They are drawn from Hebrew history and they both anticipate the dispensation of the gospel for the Gentiles. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian. (Luke 4:25-27) How strange the citation of these two cases showing the overflow of God’s mercy, even in their own history as a nation, to two Gentiles. The widow of Zarephath was a poor Gentile, Naaman the Syrian was a Gentile too, and yet these are the only instances of divine mercy which the Savior mentions in His argument to show how the nation has in the past rejected God, and He has reached men and women beyond the pale of Israel altogether. So once more they are to reject their Messiah and the Gentiles are to come in and inherit their privileges. It was a foreshadowing of the very reception that He was Himself to get that morning, for no sooner had these words fallen from His lips than the whole congregation fell upon Him in angry violence, and, dragging Him to the city, tried to hurl Him from the cliff on which Nazareth was built, and He was only saved by a divine miracle which suddenly took Him, we are not told how, from their midst, and enabled Him to escape their blind fury. So Luke gives us this early intimation of the rejection of the Messiah by His own people and the coming of the Gentiles instead. How solemn and full of instruction the fact that, although clothed with the power of the Holy Spirit, the Master’s first message to His own people at Nazareth seemed utterly to fail. Let us not be surprised if sometimes our messages too appear to fall upon dull or unbelieving ears. Sometimes we shall be “the fragrance of life,” sometimes “the smell of death” (2 Corinthians 2:16). Let us be willing to follow the Master everywhere even when it means rejection for us too. I’ll share the cross of Jesus, Its Crucifixion bear; All hail reproach and sorrow If Jesus leads me there. Beloved, have we followed the Master in the baptism of the Spirit? Have we entered into the spirit of the glorious Gospel of the Jubilee, and are we sounding out its message and sending forth the trumpets of salvation to herald on earth’s mountaintops the glorious message? Go and tell them, go and tell them, Jesus died for sinful men; Go and tell them, go and tell them, He is coming back again.