Luke 1

Luke 1:1-80

Luke Chapter 1§ 2. THE (1: 1-4). There is no Gospel which more shows the mind and love of God than this of Luke.2 None is more truly and evidently inspired. Nevertheless there is none so deeply marked by traces of the human hand and heart.* This is its characteristic object in presenting Christ to us. Luke had, as the work assigned to him of the Holy Ghost, to. delineate our Lord as a man, both in body and soul. This he does, not only as to facts which are related about Him, but in all His course and teaching in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension. It is emphatically a man we see and hear, a Divine Person, no doubt, but at the same time a real, proper man Who walks in perfect dependence and absolute obedience, honouring God and honoured of Him in all things. As to coalescence of Divine and human in Luke’s preface, Cf. “God’s Inspiration,” etc., chapter iv., “The Human Element.” For this reason I believe it is that Luke alone opens his Gospel with an address to a particular man. You could not have Matthew, consistently with the purpose and character of his Gospel, addressing it to a man; nor is it conceivable of Mark or of John. Luke so writes with the most admirable propriety. “Whereas many have undertaken to arrange a declaration concerning the matters fully believed in among us, even as they, who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word, delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having thorough acquaintance from the outset with all things accurately, to write to thee in regular order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest truly know the certainty of accounts [or things] in which thou hast been instructed.” Thus Luke was led of God as one who had a thirst and loving desire for the good of Theophilus, and fitly addresses this Gospel to him: and this we shall find in harmony with its character throughout. It was not for him only, of course, but for the permanent instruction of the Church; yet none the less was it written to him. Theophilus was laid on the heart of that godly man to be instructed in the things of God, and this draws out the workings of the Spirit of God in him to expound the way of God as shown in Christ more perfectly. Theophilus appears to have been a man of rank, probably a Roman governor. This seems the reason why he is called here “Most Excellent,” or, as we might say, His Excellency. It relates to official position, and not to his character morally as a man.3 It is evident he was a believer, but only partially instructed. The object of the Evangelist here was to give him a fuller understanding of “the way.“4 *Cf. Acts 23:26; Acts 24:3, Acts 26:25. At this time there were many accounts of Christ in vogue among Christians. The “many” spoken of here who had undertaken to draw up these accounts of our Lord, were not inspired.4a Luke does not charge them with evil intent in what they wrote, still less with falsehood, but it was clearly inadequate, as being no more than the fruit of a human effort5 to relate the matters5a fully believed5b among the Christians. They did not accomplish the work so as to set aside the need of a fresh and above all a Divinely given narrative of the Lord Jesus. Only we must carefully remember that the difference between an inspired writing and any other is not that the other is necessarily false, and that the inspired one is simply true. There is much more than this. It is the truth as God sees it, and with that special object that God always has in view when He furnishes an account of anything.

A gospel is not a mere biography: it is God’s account of Christ, governed by the special moral object He was pleased to impress on it. This is characteristic of all inspired writings, whatever their form or aim.

Inspiration excludes mistake, no doubt; but it does much more than that. It includes a Divine object for the instruction of the faithful in the display of God’s glory in Christ. These “many” biographers4a spoken of by Luke were not authorized by the Spirit of God. They may have entered on their self-imposed task with the best motives, and some or all may have been persons in whom the Spirit of God was (i.e., Christians), but they were not inspired any more than one who preaches the Gospel or seeks to edify believers. There is a weighty difference between the leading of the Spirit in a general way, where flesh may more or less impair the truth enforced, and the inspiration of the Spirit, which not only excludes all error but gives what was never given before. Luke was inspired; yet he does not put forward his inspiration.

And what then? Who does?

Matthew, Mark, John, Paul, or any other? When people write an imposture they naturally pretend to this or that, and are apt most to claim what they have least or not at all. They may talk much about inspiration; the inspired writers, as a rule, take it for granted. It is self-proved, not posted up. The special character that distinguishes these writings from all others to the heart or conscience gives the believer the certainty of inspiration. For, I repeat, the Holy Ghost not only excludes error, but writes with a Divine object, and communicates the truth as none but God can. And these proofs are such as to leave the unbeliever without excuse. Light wants nothing else to show itself.6 Observe one marked difference here claimed between these many uninspired writers and Luke’s Gospel. They had taken up the tradition6a of such as had been from the beginning6b of the Lord’s public life eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word.6c It was founded on oral testimony.4b But Luke takes particular pains to let us know that this is not said of his own Gospel.6d He does not attribute it to the same sources as theirs,7 but claims an accurate and thorough acquaintance* of all things8 from the very first (ἄνωθεν). He does not explain his sources4 any more than other inspired men, but he does contrast the character of what he knew and had to say with those who merely drew up9 a report from the earliest and best tradition. This is of high importance and has been often overlooked. Like Matthew, he goes back to the very first10 and even before Matthew’s relations; for he gives us, not only the circumstances that preceded the birth of Christ, but the account of all that pertained to His forerunner’s birth. Thus, though Luke does so far say that “it seemed good to me also” as well as to them,11 nevertheless he otherwise distinguishes his own task entirely from theirs.

He does not tell us how he had his perfect understanding of all things from the very first; he simply lays down the fact.6d Again, it seems to me that the reason why he alone gives us his motive for writing, without putting forward his inspired character, is of all interest. Not only is it unusual in the sacred writers, but also Luke has the human element so predominant that it would be somewhat inconsistent with it to dwell strongly on the fact that it was God’s Word he was writing.

He, above all, therefore, would rather avoid bringing it out prominently or formally, though he proves practically that every line was truly inspired. The regular (καθεξῆς) order was not that in which the events occurred. Such a mere sequence is by no means either the only order or the best for all purposes. To Luke it would have been an arrangement infinitely inferior to the one he has adopted. All it means is that he has written his account from the very first in a methodical manner. What that method is can only be learnt from studying the Gospel itself.

It will be proved, as we proceed, that Luke’s is essentially a moral order, and that he classifies the facts, conversations, questions, replies, and discourses of our Lord according to their inward connection, and not the mere outward succession of events, which is in truth the rudest and most infantile form of record. But to group events together with their causes and consequences, in their moral order, is a far more difficult task for the historian, as distinguished from the mere chronicler.

God can cause Luke to do it perfectly.12 Cf. “Exposition of the Acts of the Apostles,” ii., p. 48: “The Spirit of God alone secures absolute truth, which no seeing, hearing, or research Could effect.” Again, Luke writes as a man to a man, unfolding the goodness of God in man - the Man Christ Jesus. Hence all that would exemplify humanity, as in Christ and also in us before God, is brought out in the most instructive manner. He writes for the help of his Excellency, Theophilus, that he might truly know (ἐπιγνῳς)13 the certainty14 of those things15 wherein he had been instructed.16 God thus takes care of those who know Him, though it may be imperfectly, and He would lead them more deeply into the understanding and enjoyment of what He is now communicating to man by His grace. “To him that hath shall be given.” It is the way of God. Theophilus had been enabled to receive Christ and to confess Him. Hence, though Luke sets forth with particular care how truly the Gospel was preached to the poor (see chapters 4, 6, 7.), yet his Gospel as a whole is addressed to this man of rank, now a disciple. Circumstantially, there is no man so much to be pitied as to the truth of God, or who so needs the grace of God, as one who is great in this world, because he is peculiarly open to snares, temptations, and cares of the world, which war against the soul and threaten to choke up the seed of the Word. Therefore we have the gracious care of Him Who knows so well what the heart of man needs, and Who, despising not any, deigns to provide for the great man now made low, and assuredly feeling his poverty, in spite of rank or riches. § 3. TEXTUAL . This section is identical with § 3 of Introduction to “Exposition of the Gospel of Mark.” - See also notes 14-16 there, and Cf. note 17 in Appendix below. Although able critics have for a century sought to edit the Greek Testament on documentary evidence of Greek manuscripts, ancient versions, and early citations, none as yet have succeeded in commanding more than partial confidence. Hence it has been a necessity for any careful and conscientious scholar who would really know the sources to compare several of these editions, and search into the grounds on which their differences depend, so as to have anything like a correct and enlarged view of the text, and to judge fairly of the claims of conflicting readings. . . . Mature spiritual judgment, with continual dependence on the Lord, is just as essential as a sound and thorough familiarity with the ancient witnesses of all kinds. *From a review of the Revised Version of the New Testament, in - Bible Treasury, Vol. XIII., p. 287 (June, 1881). Lachmann published a manual edition of the New Testament professedly based on Bentley’s idea of exhibiting the text as read in the fourth century . . . at one fell swoop sentenced the mass of the surviving witnesses to an ignominious death, and presented us with a text formed on absolute principles of singular narrowness. . . . The neglect of internal evidence is a fatal objection. But the grand fallacy involved is that a manuscript of the fourth or fifth century. must give better readings than one of the seventh or eighth. Now this is in no way certain. There is a presumption in favour of the more ancient manuscript, because each successive transcription tends to introduce new errors in addition to those it repeats. On the other hand, a copy of the ninth century may have been made from one older than any now extant, and certainly some old documents are more corrupt than many of the more recent witnesses.

Every ingenuous scholar must own, to say the least, that the oldest manuscripts have some bad readings, and that the modern manuscripts have some that are good. Hence the distinction is not between the united evidence of the most ancient documents (Manuscripts, Versions, Fathers) and the common herd of those more recent; for rarely, or never, is there such unanimous ancient testimony without considerable support from witnesses of a later day.

The truth is that almost always, where the old documents really agree, there is large confirmation elsewhere, and where the ancients differ, so do the moderns. It is quite unfounded, therefore, to treat it as a question pure and simple between old and new. Nor is it the important point of research what particular readings existed in the days of Jerome. For notoriously errors of various kinds had then crept into both Greek and Latin copies, and no antiquity can sanctify an error. The true question is: What, using every available means to form a judgment, was the primitive text? It is often forgotten that our oldest documents are but copies, Several centuries elapsed between the original issue of the New Testament Scriptures and any manuscripts now existing.

All, therefore, are on the ground of copyists differing only in degree. It is not, then, a comparison between a single eye-witness and many hearsay reporters, unless we had the original autographs.

And, in fact, we know that an historian’s account, three centuries after alleged facts, may be, and often is, corrected, five hundred or a thousand years after, by recurrence to sources more trustworthy, or by a more patient, comprehensive, and skilful sifting of neglected evidence. My own conviction is that in certain cases, especially in single words, the most ancient copy that exists may be corrected by another generally inferior, not only in age, but in almost every respect besides, and that internal evidence ought to be used, in dependence upon the Spirit of God, where the external authorities are conflicting.*17 From Preface to “The Revelation of John, edited in Greek, with a new English Version and a Statement of the Chief Authorities and Various Readings.” (London: Williams and Norgate, 1860.) Luke 1:5ff. *Cf. “Lectures introductory to the Gospels,” pp. 245-247. That the Gospel of Luke has a special aspect towards men at large, that it displays the grace of God towards the Gentiles who had been so long forgotten, or seemed to be so in the outward dealings of God, is very plain. Nevertheless some have found, as they thought, an insuperable difficulty to their admitting this to be the characteristic business of Luke, because we find, for instance, at the very beginning a striking occupation of the writer’s mind with the circumstances of the Jewish people before, at, and after the birth of Christ. In fact, none of the Gospels introduces us so thoroughly into the whole routine of their state and worship, with their relation to the worldly powers: first of all to the king that then ruled over them, Herod the Great; and, in the next chapter, to the Roman Empire. But I think it will be found, if we look below the surface, that there is no real inconsistency between such a preface as we have in Luke and the general regard that he pays to the Gentiles in the rest of his Gospel. In fact, it answers closely to what we find in the ministry of the apostle who had Luke for his companion in labours. For although Paul was so emphatically the apostle of the Gentiles, the uncircumcision being delivered over to him as the circumcision was to Peter; none the less was it Paul’s habit in every place first to visit the Jews, or, as he says himself, “to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.” So it is precisely that Luke begins with the Jew, discloses God working in the midst of the remnant of that people before we find the intimations of His mercy towards the Gentiles. So far from inconsistency on the part of Luke with his purpose, this very introduction of the Jews in the beginning of his Gospel seems even to be morally necessary; because God could not, so to speak, go out to the Gentiles according to the analogy of His dealings from the beginning and His promises to the Jewish people, unless there were first the manifestation of His goodness there and the unheeded effect of it as far as the Jews were concerned. God proves amply His mercy towards Israel before He turns to the nations. Israel would have none of Him or His Kingdom: the Gentiles would hear. Hence we find that, although Luke’s be the Gentile Gospel, there is first this full and bold outline presented to us of the working of God’s grace among the Jews. Luke 1:5-6. “There was in the days of Herod the king of Judea,19 a certain priest by name Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name Elisabeth.” Thus we have the living picture of the state of things then going on in Israel. There might be a foreign prince over them - an Edomite, and high priests in strange confusion, as we shall see shortly; but for all that there was a priest duly married to one of the daughters of Aaron, Zacharias, of the course of Abia. “And they were both just before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the LORD blameless.” Low as the state was in Israel and outwardly most irregular, nevertheless, in the midst of all there were godly ones: and the only thing that enabled any to walk after such a sort in Israel was the faith of the coming Messiah: this at least had not disappeared. On the contrary, God’s Spirit was working in the hearts of a few, preparing them for the One Who was coming. Zacharias and Elisabeth were among these few. They were expecting in faith, the effect of which, where it is real, is to give power of walking rightly. The only souls who walked well, even according to the law, were those who looked beyond the law to Christ.

Those who merely rested in the law broke it, though the law might be their boast. On the contrary, such as looked for the Messiah were faithful, “walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the LORD blameless.” It is the same thing in principle now. There are those who cry up the law as a rule of life, but such never carry themselves well even according to that standard. On the contrary, those who go forward in the sense of God’s grace, knowing the full deliverance of the believer in the redemption that is in Christ, do really manifest the righteousness of the law; as it is said, “What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” Romans 8:3. If I am walking after the law, I do not fulfil it; if I am walking after the Spirit, I do. The same doctrine appears in Galatians 5. If we walk according to the Spirit, there are good fruits: “against such there is no law.” Galatians 5:23.

On the contrary, the law justifies the fruits of the Spirit, but the Spirit never justifies the ways of any man who finds his rule of life in the law, which is and must be to a sinful man a rule of condemnation and death. There is no power of grace, unless Christ be the Object of the heart. Such was the case with this godly pair in Israel. The aged priest and his wife were really (i.e., believingly) looking for the Messiah. Their hope was no fleshly desire to exalt themselves or their nation in earthly power; though it remains true that Israel will then be the head and the Gentiles the tail, (Deuteronomy 28:13.) when Messiah comes to close their last fiery tribulation and deliver them from their foes. But in that day the hearts of the godly remnant will be lifted above pride or vanity, they will bear to be exalted above all other peoples of the earth. Such is the Divine counsel according to prophecy which God will surely accomplish in its season. Observe how faith leads to faithfulness. Those who merely look to the law (i.e., as much as God requires) never accomplish His righteous requirement. In every case one must be above any obligations in order to fulfil them. I ’ must have faith in God’s object in order to fulfil God’s will. If my mind is occupied with Christ, I shall be able in the same measure to glorify God. Luke 1:7-14. Thus it was with Zacharias and his wife. They looked in faith for the Messiah: hence they were righteous, and walking in the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly. Nevertheless they had a disappointment of heart which answered to the state of things in Israel. “They had no child, because Elisabeth was barren; and they were both advanced in years.” They had prayed about it, as we find afterwards. Though Zacharias seems even to have lost sight of his own prayer, yet God had not. And so “it came to pass, as he fulfilled his priestly service before God in the order of his course” - for here he was faithful to the requisition of daily duty - “it fell to him by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter into the temple of the LORD to burn incense. And all the multitude of the people were praying without at the hour of incense.” We have thus a full and lively setting, forth of what was actually going on then in Israel. “And an angel of [the] LORD appeared to him standing on the right of the altar of incense.” In this form such a visit was unknown for a long while.

It was a gracious intervention of God (not merely betimes, as we find in another Gospel, for the healing of sicknesses and weaknesses of the people, but) for the more glorious purpose of announcing the forerunner of the Messiah Himself. Was it so strange after all that he was to be born beyond nature of this godly couple?

One could not have anticipated such a thing; but once announced as God’s intention, how wise and suitable our hearts see it to be! When Zacharias saw the angel he “was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, Fear not, Zacharias, because thy supplication has been heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John” (i.e., the gift of God). “And he shall be to thee joy and rejoicing: and many shall rejoice at his birth.“20 It was calculated to strike the eye and heart of any godly Israelite, being manifestly God’s gift. The LORD was faithful to His people and His purposes. There were many who at this time were looking for the Messiah. We know even from heathen authors that there was a strong, general, and ancient tradition (no doubt derived from Balaam of old, and Daniel later, and the Septuagint), that at this time a great prince was to be born in Israel, who would lead that nation on to supremacy. Hence they would naturally heed this extraordinary birth, and the singular course of life which John the Baptist ever followed, as well as his preaching when the time for it was come. Luke 1:15-17. “He shall be great before [the] LORD,* and he shall drink no wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with [the] Holy Ghost even from his mother’s womb.” He should be a Nazarite, separated to the LORD, not only in outward separation, but with inward and special power of God.21 “And many of the sons of Israel shall he turn to [the] LORD their God.” This would be the characteristic aim of his mission - to recall them to God from whom they had departed. “And he shall go before him in [the] spirit and power of Elias, to turn hearts of fathers to children, and disobedient ones to [the] thoughts of just [men]15 to make ready for [the] LORD a prepared people.” Elijah was the prophet who took up the broken obligations of the people. Hence it is that he went to Horeb. Thence it was that Elias had his great commission from before God; there he went through the scene we have so strikingly described in his history. Horeb was the place where the law was given, and Elias went back thither, feeling how deeply the people had departed from God. John should now recall the people in the spirit and power of Elias. It is repentance; it is not of course the great work of God in putting away sin - that could only be done by one, even Jesus the Lord.

Neither is it the power of the Holy Ghost shed upon Israel. This also could only be done by Christ.

He is, as we find in John, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.” John 1:29; John 1:33. But John could at least do his own work by God’s grace given to him; he should go “before him in the spirit and power of Elias.” This is a remarkable testimony: first, because it is said he shall go before the LORD, i.e., before Jehovah; a plain statement of the dignity of Jesus. He was really Jehovah; and this messenger of His should go before His face, next, “in [the] spirit and power of Elias, to turn hearts of fathers to children.” There was no union, but alienation: everything was broken in Israel. Sin always produces such dislocations. But John should “turn the hearts of fathers to children”; that is, he would be used of God to unite them in affection, and also to instruct them morally, or lead “the disobedient to the wisdom of the just.“22 Hence, in all respects, both in affection and in moral power and wisdom, his mission was “to make ready for the LORD a prepared people.” Such would be John’s work - “to make ready for the LORD a prepared people.” *As to the textual criticism of Luke’s Gospel, see note 17 in Appendix. - In this Gospel the authorities show considerable variation with regard to use of the definite article before “LORD.” Here it is contained in BDΔ, etc., but not in ACLΓ 33. Κύριος without the article stands regularly for Jehovah (Yahveh) of the Old Testament, as in the LXX. So in verse 16. Cf. again in verse 28. Luke 1:18-20. “And Zacharias said to the angel, How shall I know this, for I am an old man, and my wife advanced in years?” Unbelief works just when God was about to accomplish this signal mercy - a remarkable but by no means infrequent case which we would do well to apply to our souls. That is, when God means mercy to us, we are too apt to limit the Lord; to doubt Him even when the blessing comes very close to us; to put some difficulty in the way, yielding to the suggestions of the enemy and the unbelief of our own hearts. Zacharias accordingly asks how he should know it. The angel answers, “I am Gabriel23 who stand before God; and I have been sent to speak to thee and to bring these glad tidings to thee. And, behold, thou shall be silent, and not able to speak, till the day in which these things shall take place, because thou hast not believed my words, such as shall be fulfilled in their time.” A measure of chastening was thus put upon Zacharias - a sign to others, but at the same time a rebuke to himself. The very fact that he was struck suddenly dumb would awaken the attention of the people. They would see that an extraordinary occurrence had taken place and might be led to think about it. On the other hand, when God had sent His angel to tell him that these things should be done, Zacharias showed his unbelief in requiring another sign. Hence his chastening.

God’s words should be fulfilled in their season spite of his unbelief. Mercy removes the stroke in due season. Luke 1:21-25. “And the people were awaiting Zacharias, and they wondered at his delaying in the temple. But when he came out he could not speak to them: and they recognised that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he was making signs to them and continued dumb. And it came to pass, when the days of his service were completed, he departed to his house.” Each priest had to serve in his course from Sabbath to Sabbath; so when the week was up, he leaves. “Now after these days Elisabeth his wife conceived, and hid herself five months, saying, Thus has the LORD done to me in [these] days in which he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men.” The feeling of Elisabeth under the circumstances was just as godly as the unbelief. of Zacharias was a striking witness of what is so natural to us all.24 This closes the opening incidents which the Spirit of God gives us by Luke. Luke 1:26-38. It was the angel Gabriel who was sent to Daniel to make known of old the Messiah’s coming and cutting off in the famous prophecy of the seventy weeks. (Daniel 9:26.) Now he comes to Mary, the espoused of Joseph, and announces to her, “the virgin” of a still older prophet, (Isaiah 7:14) the birth of that Messiah.25 No wonder that he salutes her as a favoured one, with whom the Lord was. Blessed was she among women!* Mary,26 though troubled, pondered what might be the meaning of this salutation. The angel bids her not fear, for she has found favour with God. She is the chosen channel of the wondrous purposes which should yet fill the world as well as her own people with blessing - the appointed mother she is to be of One in Whom God was about to solve all the difficulties that sin had brought into the world by a righteous triumph over it - nay, to make it possible for God to bless those who believed, sinners though they had been, and to make them righteously triumph through and with Himself. “Blessed art thou amongst women.” So Treg. (text) after ACD and most later uncials, with cursives (33, 69), Syrrpesch hcl. Old Latin, Gothic, Aeth. The words (as anticipating those in verse 42) are omitted here by Edd. in general with BL, Memph. Arm. Therefore he says, “Behold, thou shalt conceive in the womb, and bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus” - a Divine Saviour.27 “He shall be great, and shall be called Son of [the] Highest,28 and the Lord God shall give him the throne of David his father.” This is another and quite different glory, which evidently combines with saving power His title of Messiah. “And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for the ages; and of his kingdom there shall not be an end.” Even in the lowest domain, how far is His Kingdom from being a mere human dominion! See “Lectures on Matthew,” p. 30. “But Mary said to the angel, How shall this be, since I know not a man?” She does not doubt, but she asks confidingly. Hence there is no smiting dumb nor any sign of unbelief, as in the case of Zacharias, who asked, “Whereby shall I know this?” There maybe a question in the spirit which needs an answer, but betrays no lack of faith. There might be one not so dissimilar in form, but which really sprang from unbelief. God does not judge according to appearance, but the heart. The angel accordingly explains in all grace to Mary. “[The] Holy Spirit shall come upon thee,29 and power of [the] Highest overshadow thee.” It was not to be nature, but Divine power. “Therefore the holy thing also which shall be born [of thee] shall be called Son of God,” and not merely Son of man. This is exceedingly important. “Son of God” is a title that belongs to our Lord both in His Divine glory before He became a man and here; for, in this place when He became a man, He did not cease to be Son of God. As incarnate He was still the Son of God. So, again, when He rose from the dead, the same thing was true; He was the Son of God as risen again. It is plain therefore that it is a title that appertains to Him in the three conditions in which Scripture represents our Lord. He was the Son of God when He was purely and simply a Divine Person; Son of God when He became a man; Son of God when risen from the dead and gone out of this world to heaven. “Of thee,” after “born” is supported only by C and a few minuscules. But there is another thing also to note, that His taking manhood did not in the smallest degree connect Him with the taint of man’s fallen nature. This was absolutely counteracted by the singularity of His conception, which was effected through the power of the Holy Ghost. “Wherefore the holy thing also which shall be born [of thee] shall be called Son of God.“30 Thus He was holy, not merely in His Divine nature, but in His humanity. He was emphatically the Holy One of God: without this not only would salvation have been impossible for us, but even His own acceptance as man would have been out of the question.“30a We have therefore in this passage the most important truth as to the birth of this wondrous Child, and the union of the Divine and human natures in the person of Christ. Much here given is peculiar to Luke. Mary is informed also of what God was doing to her cousin Elisabeth, for as the angel added “with God nothing shall be impossible.“31 She bows at once to the will of the LORD, with the words, “Behold the bondmaid of [the] LORD; be it to me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.” Luke 1:39-56. Mary then arises, enters into the house of Zacharias and salutes her kinswoman, Elisabeth, which gives occasion to the wonderful obeisance that was paid even by the unborn babe, Elisabeth’s child, to her the predestined mother of the Messiah, in honour to the Messiah himself.32 The consequence was that Elisabeth, filled with the Holy Ghost, breaks out into an acknowledgment of the place God had given Mary. “And whence [is] this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” It is remarkable how beautifully it is owned that even the child that was yet to be born was the Lord. We find just the same thing with Mary herself. She has no notion of being taken out of the place of a needy sinner, whilst the miraculous birth of John does not detract from Elisabeth’s sense of the Messiah, but rather adds to her sense of it. She owns at the same time that God has shown singular favour to Mary’s soul. “Blessed is she that has believed; for there shall be a fulfilment of the things spoken to her from [the]. LORD.“33 She knew that what had happened to her husband was because of unbelief, and contrasts with it Mary’s meek, because believing, heart. Mary answers,34 “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit35 hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath looked upon the low estate of his bondmaid; for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” It is remarkable how simply Scripture has met beforehand the monstrous unbelief of man which lowers God as much as it exalts a human being. Mary had no thought of exaltation. She says, “All generations shall call me blessed,” but not a blesser. She was the object of blessing, not the giver or mediatrix of it. “For the Mighty One hath done to me great things; and holy [is] his name [not a word of her own]. And his mercy is to generations and generations to them that fear him [not that pray to or worship me].

He hath wrought strength with his arm; he hath scattered haughty [ones] in the thought of their heart. He hath put down rulers from thrones, and exalted the lowly” - alluding to her own place as well as Elisabeth’s. “He hath filled the hungry with good things; and sent the rich empty away. He hath helped Israel, his servant, in order to remember mercy; as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.” It is remarkable how Jewish the character of the joy is, and the acknowledgement of the mercy. “Generations and generations”: so Edd. after BCpm LΞ Amiat. Syrpesch Memph. with nine other uncials has “generations and generations.” Syrrsin pesch: “generation and tribe.” - ACcorr D, etc., 33, have “generations of generations.” Luke 1:57-80. So Mary abides with her cousin three months, and then returns to her own house.36 “But the time was fulfilled for Elisabeth that she should bring forth; and she gave birth to a son. And her neighbours and kinsfolk heard how [the] LORD had magnified his mercy with her; and they rejoiced with her.” The general thought was to call37 the child after his father’s name; but the mother, who alone can speak for it, directs. him to be called John. Zacharias is appealed to and writes, “John is his name.” And immediately the punishment of his unbelief departs from him. His tongue was loosed and he spoke and praised God; which filled all around with fear, astonishment, and anticipation of what this child would be Zacharias breaks forth into a strain of praise.38 “Blessed be [the] LORD the God of Israel; because he hath visited and wrought redemption for his people, and raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David, his servant.” It is remarkable the grace that does not so much look at his own house as at the house of God’s servant David. There was faith here. During the season of his dumbness Zacharias has pondered the ways of the LORD; and the Holy Ghost, as He had filled Elisabeth, as He had filled the babe from his mother’s womb, so now filled Zacharias, who prophesies the end of these wonders. “That we should be delivered from our enemies, and out of the hand of all who hate us; to fulfil39 mercy with our fathers, and remember his holy covenant; [the] oath which he swore to Abraham, our father, to give us, that, saved out of the hand of our enemies, we should serve him without fear.“39a It is important to observe how thoroughly this savours of Old Testament hopes. It is not a question of sins merely, but of being delivered from their enemies, which last is assuredly not, nor ought to be, the feeling of the Christian now. Does not the Christian serve God, delivered from his sins, in the midst of his enemies? So when the Lord comes, it is simply a taking him up out of the midst of his enemies when the time of deliverance comes. Here then the language is, “That we being saved out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in piety40 and righteousness before him all our days."† Such is the expectation of Israel according to the Psalms and the Prophets. “Our”: so ACD, etc., Amiat. Syrr. Memph.; but Edd. omit, after BL 1, 69, etc. †“All our days”: so Edd. after ABCDL, etc., Old Lat. Vulg. Syrr. (exc. sin) Memph. - E and some other copies, with cursives 1, 69 Syrsin have “all the days of our life.” “And thou, child, shalt be called [the] prophet of [the] Highest; for thou shalt go before the face of [the] LORD to make ready his ways” - an allusion clearly to Malachi (Malachi 3:1) as well as to Isaiah. “To give knowledge of salvation41 to his people by [the] forgiveness of their sins.” It is not that the Jews will be without the remission of their sins; they will have that beside deliverance from their enemies. All this is “on account of [the] bowels of mercy of our God; whereby [the] day-spring from on high has visited us, to shine upon them who were sitting in darkness and in [the] shadow of death, to guide our feet into [the] way of peace.” *“Has visited”: so T. R., retained by Tisch., Treg. (text) and Blass, after AC and some cursives with Old Lat. - Other Edd. (W. H., followed by Revv., Weiss) adopt “will visit,” as BL, Syrr. Arm. Such will be the condition in which the Jews will be finally met by God; there will be a special darkness more immediately before the light shines out upon them. It was when they were in bitter degradation under the Gentiles, as well as in the moral darkness, that the Lord came the first time; still more will this be the case when He comes again. There will be renewed bondage under the power of the West; a stranger king will reign in the land, and a special delusive power of Satan will be there, but the Lord will appear to the discomfiture of all their foes and the full deliverance of His people Israel. Meanwhile “the child grew, and was strengthened in spirit; and he was in the deserts until the day of his showing to Israel.“42 We have seen that, before the large universal character of the Gospel of Luke appears - the grace of God to man - there is the utmost care to show the goodness and forbearance of the Lord in meeting Israel as they then were. Thus they have the responsibility of refusing their Messiah, before God lays the foundation of the richest grace to man generally.

NOTES ON THE FIRST CHAPTER, Verse 5 ff. 19 Luke 1:5. - “Judea.” This seems to stand for the whole land of Israel, as manifestly in Acts 10:37, and in the Gospel at Luke 6:17, Luke 7:17, and Luke 23:5. In Luke 2:4, Luke 5:17, however, it probably represents the limited territory of Judah (see verse 39). 20 Luke 1:13. - The are seven pieces of dialogue in this and the chapters following, which are more or less rhapsodical utterances, and go under the name of “canticles.” Margoliouth says: “The evidence is strongly in favour of their having been originally in Hebrew verse” (address on Synoptic Gospels at University College, London). Cf. note 4 F with reference to the suggestion of Schleiermacher (p. 25) and others (as Burkitt), that these are Luke’s free compositions; see also Godet, i., p. 216 f., and Sanday, “Outlines of the Life of Christ,” who regards chapters 1 and 2 as “the most archaic thing in the New Testament” (p. 166), and Briggs’ “of the first degree of historic importance” (p. 164 f.). The passages are: - (i.) Luke 1:13-17: (ii.) Luke 1:28; Luke 1:30-33; Luke 1:35-37 f.; (iii.) Luke 1:42-45; (iv.) Luke 1:46-55; (v.) Luke 1:68-79; (vi.) Luke 2:10-12; Luke 2:14; (vii.) Luke 2:29-32; Luke 2:34 f. 21 Luk 1:15. - For Nazarite vows, see Num. 6, and cf. Matthew 11:18. 22 Luk 1:17. - Plummer refers to Ecclesiasticus 48: 10 (see R. V.), languishing of parental affection. Augustine’s idea (adopted by Calvin) was that by the “fathers” is meant, the patriarchs (see Isaiah 29:22 f.; Isaiah 63:16). “Disobedient,” i.e., to God, so Schanz, referring to Titus 1:16, Titus 3:3; cf. Romans 1:5. “To (for, by) the wisdom” (A.V.) came from Malachi 4:6. 23 Luk 1:19. - “Gabriel.” Tobit 12: 15, speaks of seven archangels (naming “Raphael”). The Book of Enoch adds “Uriel.” These are the sources of Milton’s nomenclature. In canonical Scripture (but see Revelation 1:4, Revelation 3:1, Revelation 4:5) not more than two archangels are named, Gabriel (Dan. 8, 9), herald of goodness, and Michael (Dan. 10, 12; Jude 1:9; Revelation 12:7) of wrath. The Jews have said that “Gabriel flies with two wings, Michael with one.” 24 Luke 1:25. - “Reproach” (see Genesis 30:23). 25 Luke 1:26 ff. - We here enter upon the Birth story, as to which Harnack (“What is Christianity?” p. 31) says, “The oldest tradition knew nothing of any stories of Jesus’ ‘birth.”’ The whole question of the Virgin birth will be discussed below at verse 34 ff. As to “Nazareth,” see note 46. 26 Luke 1:27 f. - Mary as a name represents the Old Testament “Miriam,” in Aramaic “Mariam,” as in Greek here. According to the Protevangelium of James, she was fifteen years of age at the time. The ancient belief was that she died in the year 64. The question has been raised whether the words “of the House of David” go with “Virgin” (B. Weiss, Godet) or with “man” (De Wette, Meyer). Chrysostom and Bengel say with both. Cf. verse 32 and note there; also verse 69, and see note in chapter 3 on the Genealogy. Its being said of Joseph would have no meaning in this connection, when actually applied to him, in Luke 2:4, it is introduced as something fresh. Cf. on verse 32. On the infancy, see Nicoll, “The Incarnate Saviour,” chapter i., pp. 14-16, in particular. 27 Luke 1:31. - “Jesus.” The name (Jeshua), Nehemiah 8:17, was very common among the Jews of the time. In Colossians 4:11, mention made of a Jesus, surnamed Justus, one of the Circumcision. One of the Lord’s ancestors, according to the flesh, bore the same name, see Luke 3:29 (R.V.). The Talmud, in order to get rid of the original meaning of “the name” (James 2:7), although using “Jeshua” of all others bearing it, regularly speaks of the Lord by the clipped name Jesu. 28 Luke 1:32. - “The Highest.” The O. T. Elyon. It was the usual designation of GOD among the Hellenistic Jews of the Dispersion. Again in verses 35, 76. “His father David.” Mary was probably of the tribe of Judah (B. Weiss). 29 Luke 1:34 ff. - Five verses here enshrine Luke’s narrative of the supernatural (virgin) birth of the Lord Jesus. Schanz forsakes his usually sensible exegesis - but what is a Roman writer here to do? - by taking Mary’s words as a vow of virginity, which is excluded by verse 27. “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee,” etc. Cf. Acts 1:8. For the “overshadow,” see Exodus 40:34. Pfleiderer: “It is not God himself, but God’s Holy Spirit, who begets Jesus” (“Primitive Christianity,” ii., p. 117 f.), a remark certainly not derivable from the exact words of the Evangelists, which represent the Holy Spirit’s action only as the procuring cause. The article is absent, as again in Luke 2:13. 30 “Shall be called Son of God.” The “therefore” shows that we have not here the Eternal Sonship. The Messiah (see note on Luke 2:11) had to be, transcendently, Son of God (verse 35); next, Son of Man (see note on Luke 5:24), if He was to take up the Davidic claims; and child of a virgin (verse 27). i. As Son of God, He should be both Priest and Victim (L. A. Sabatier, “The Atonement,” p. 53, comparing John 17:19, and Hebrews 8:2), and fulfil at the same time the types of “burnt offering” and “sin offering.” Ritschl has well said that the distinctive N. T. name of GOD is “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Ephesians 1:3. The Christadelphian theory that the Sonship began with the birth of the Lord, so as to preclude His pre-existence, is but a popular echo of unbelieving “scientific” theology. Its advocates are materialistic Unitarians. Swedenborgians, on the other hand, confess the pre-existence. For Loisy’s assertion (“Synoptic Gospels,” vol. i., p. 194) that this idea is “not expressly formulated nor even suggested in the Synoptic Gospels,” see note on Luke 10:22. The Lord is spoken of as “Son of God” in this Gospel (1) by others, in Luke 3:22; Luke 4:3; Luke 4:9; Luke 4:41; Luke 8:28; Luke 9:35 and Luke 20:9. (2) By Himself in Luke 10:22 (“The Son”) as in Luke 22:70 in answer to the high priest’s adjuration. He speaks of God as His “Father” in Luke 2:49; Luke 9:26; Luke 10:21 f.; Luke 22:29; Luke 22:42; Luke 23:34; Luke 23:46; Luke 24:49. ii. That JESUS should be legal heir of Joseph belongs rather to the consideration of Matthew’s narrative; but see note on the Genealogy below, and also that on Luke 8:20, with regard to indispensable requirements of such a claim. iii. The virginity of Mary is also developed by Matthew, who cites Isaiah 7:14, attaching to that prediction a meaning not previously given to it by the Jews; so that Dalman, who notes this little-known circumstance, treats it as supporting the truth of the narrative, on the ground that a virgin-birth was not looked for (“Words of Jesus,” p. 276). As D. Smith says, “the history was not as sceptics insinuate, adapted to the prophecy, but the prophecy to the history” (p. 528). Pfleiderer (op. cit., ii., p. 346) in connection with Mark 3:21 (cf. note 41 in “Exposition” of that Gospel), objects that Mary could not have joined His brethren in treating JESUS as out of His senses if she had known of a supernatural birth. But there is absolutely nothing in Mark’s text to show that she did participate in their impression. The Marcan incident does not clash with her attitude in verse 34 here. J. H. Newman, preaching on the Incarnation (Sermons, vol. ii., p. 35), said: “As in the beginning woman was formed of man by Almighty power, so now, by a like mystery, but a reverse order, the new Adam was fashioned from the woman. . . . He had no earthly father; He abhorred to have one.” The great recent German theologian, Dorner, has remarked: “As Son of Man, the Lord cannot have been the son of any particular man:” see his “Christian Doctrine,” ii., pp. 446-451. Nowhere in the Old Testament is there any mention of a human father of the Messiah (Delitzsch, “Messianic Prophecies”); cf. Psalms 22:10. The Syriac of Sinai, in Matthew 1:16, has “Joseph begot Jesus”; that version, however, in the same context speaks of Mary as a virgin; so that its “begot” must be understood in a juridical sense, as manifestly in the Greek of verse 8; “Joram begot Uzziah,” and of verse 13, “Zerubbabel begot Abiud.” The Curetonian Syriac follows the traditional text. The status of betrothal was in the eye of Jewish law the same as that of marriage: Deuteronomy 22:23 f. The stages in the New Testament view of the Lord’s Person are doubtless three, as stated by Lobstein (p. 65 f.):- (1) In Mark, corresponding more to the popular Messianic belief or theocratic view of the Divine Sonship. Such would supply, according to his parable, the “green blade of the doctrine.” As to Mark’s being said not to have heard of the Virgin Birth (Menzies, Clodd, etc.), see note 57 in “Exposition” of that Gospel. Critics are careful to say as little as possible about Mark’s “silence” as to Joseph which, however, so impressed Baur that he maintained the critics’ first Evangelist was acquainted with the Virgin Birth. (2) Of the independent records of Matthew and Luke, either of which would be alien to the Jewish mind, Matthew’s is the more objective (public) account, proceeding, it seems likely, from Joseph; Luke’s, the more subjective (private) account, probably derived ultimately from Mary (cf. Godet, i., p. 162 f.), through her son James (as suggested by Bishop Chase, referring to Acts 21:18). Although he “begins with the Jew” (Exposition) and so corroborates Matthew’s specially Jewish testimony, his record was designed for Gentile readers, many of whom would be familiar with legendary stories of virgin-births (Pfleiderer, “Early Christian Conception of Christ,” pp. 35-43), as of Buddha (Paul Carus), who would not be alienated by the representation of such a supernatural event. Here the Church would receive the “ear” of Mark’s parable. (3) In the Prologue of John’s Gospel. As to the fourth Evangelist’s supposed silence upon this subject, see Neander, “Life of Christ,” p. 17, and note 21 in the Exposition of the last Gospel; also note 42 there, on Gardner’s fancy (“Exploratio Evangelica,” p. 239) that John meant to protest against the Virgin Birth, or that writer’s notion that the words to Nicodemus in John 3:6 could be used against it. This last stage would represent the “full blade in the ear.” And so of the Apostle Paul, as in Romans 1:3 f. “Paul,” writes Pfleiderer, “is anything rather than a Jew in his Christological exegesis of the Old Testament. Here he leaves all Jewish tradition on one side and gives vent to his mythological vein; whence he derives it, it would be hard to tell. No road leads up to the divinity (sic) of Christ from the Old Testament” (op. cit., ii., p. 115). Such a theory as this we may hold, with Orr, “is the death of all its predecessors in its admission that the idea of the V.B. was familiar to Paul” (see 1 Corinthians 15:47; also Galatians 4:4, γενομένος, “come,” rather than, as in Luke 7:28, of the Baptist, γεννητός, “born”) and the early Christians. (Cf. chapters 3, 5, of Dr. R. J.

Cooke’s “The Incarnation and Modern Criticism” (1907)). It is because of the difficulty felt in being consistent in this respect that negative critics have fallen back on the device of tracing the belief to Gentile myths, going back to Babylonian (Orr, p. 27 of pamphlet); but Harnack, to his credit, dissociates himself from this part of the business. The miraculous conception is recognised first, outside the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, in the Letter of Ignatius to the Ephesians, and in the recently recovered Apology of Aristides. It begins to be denied by Cerinthus (Irenaeus, i. 26), probably within the lifetime of the Apostle John (cf. above under Gardner). So repugnant must it have been to the severely austere morality of Jews, that “the mere fact that it arose on Jewish soil is a singular attestation of the Evangelic story” (D. Smith, p. 52, after Neander, p. 15). Orr, referring to present-day criticism allied with the system of the Jewish “Ebionites,” remarks: “It is a curious irony which makes the narrowest and most retrograde of Jewish-Christian sects (the ancient Nazarenes, or more tolerant party, accepted the belief) the true representatives of Apostolic Christianity” (“The Virgin Birth,” p. 164 f.). This matter forms an essential part of the larger question as to the distinction which is made between the “historical Jesus” and “the Christ of the Creeds.” Thus Pfieiderer: “Primitive Christianity has transferred the Jesus of history into the Christ of faith . . . has identified the ‘self-existing Christ’ with the heavenly Son of Man of the Apocalypse and the Son of God and Logos . . . has finally brought this eternal heavenly Being down to earth to become man, to die, to return to Heaven, there to share the throne and sovereignty of God until His future coming to judge the world” (“Early Christian Conception,” p. 160 f.). Again Schmidt: “He (i.e., JESUS) would have been utterly bewildered by the Nicene creed” (p. 383); and Gardner: “There is no demonstrable connection between the ‘Jesus of history’ and the Christ of Christian experience.” These are typical expressions of what goes under the name of the “New (Modern) Theology” from three countries of “modern civilization.” But listen to one who, advanced critic as he is, is careful in his statements - Wellhausen - who writes, “The historical Jesus, like a leading card, has been played against Christianity. . . To divorce Him from the effect of His history is to be unjust to Him. Whence came faith in Him as religious Ideal save from Christianity? . . . We cannot go back even if we would.” (“Introduction to the First Three Gospels.” p. 114.) H. Holtzmann and Harnack question the two verses, as if an interpolation. On the same side, besides Lobstein (above) write Drummond, Wernle (pp.81-83 of booklet in E. T.), and Schmiedel (“Encyclopaedia Biblica” art. “Mary”), J. Weiss, etc.; whilst in defence of the V.B. the following, besides Orr, may be consulted: - Dorner, B. Weiss, Godet (pp. 213-216), Zahn, Fairbairn, Bruce, Gore, and Sanday, etc. See further, besides notes referred to above, those on Luke 2:41; Luke 2:48; Luke 4:22; and Luke 18:19. 30a The “holy thing” (cf. Matthew 1:20). This distinctly traverses Dr. Boses’ saying that the Lord was “not holy by nature” (“The Gospel in the Gospels,” p. 163). The position taken by the American professor is a curious comment on his countryman Prof. Foster’s claim as against “orthodox” scholars, to “intellectual” honesty.

JESUS was from the outset “holy,” cf. John 10:36, although “made of a woman” (Galatians 4:6); see Job 25:4. On the connection of this with His sinlessness, see Orr, pamphlet on the “Virgin Birth,” p. 29. A pulpit, if not academical, utterance of Schleiermacher should be noted: “It is the experience of all without exception that in everyone who has appeared on earth, endowed only as the children of men, sin has sooner or later developed. So it would have been in the Redeemer Himself if he had been from His birth like other children. . . . If Christ had been a sinner even in the least degree, could He have been our Saviour?” (“Selections from Foreign Pulpit Literature,” vol. xvi., p. 279 ff.). Bruce has well said: “A sinless man is as much a miracle in the moral world, as a virgin birth is a miracle in the physical world” (“Apologetics,” p. 410, in criticism of the view taken by Abbott in “Onesimus,” bk. iii., par. 7). For the translation of verse 35, cf. American Revision. 31 Luk 1:37. - Cf. verse 35, and note on 2: 11 (Theotokos, cf. note 51). 32 Luk 1:42. - Cf. Judith 13: 18. 33 Luk 1:45. - These words Bunyan represents as coming to the remembrance of Christiana and her party as soon as they had crossed the “Slough of Despond” (Pilgrim’s Progress,” Pt. ii.). 34 Luke 1:46-55. - The “Magnificat.” The Virgin was familiar with the Old Testament Scriptures, especially the Psalms, where compare Psalms 45:3; Psalms 98:3; Psalms 107:9; Psalms 132:1; Psalms 132:6-7; Psalms 132:15. That Luke resorted to the vocabulary of the Seventy (note 4 F) to record the Aramaic utterances of Mary (verse 48) in Greek may be readily believed; but to say that he freely composed them (cf. note 20) is another matter. Ryle aptly refers to Colossians 3:16 for the lesson conveyed by this beautiful canticle. Hort’s marginal reading “Elizabeth” instead of “Mary,” in verse 46, is that of three old Latin MSS., and was known to Origen. It seems to have no support from Greek copies. 35 “Soul . . . spirit.” Cf. Psalms 103:1; “all that is within me” (Maclaren). How closely connected, and yet distinct, “soul” and “spirit” are, is shown by Hebrews 4:12. The difference broadens in the adjectives, “soulish” and “spiritual” in 1 Corinthians 15:46. “All through Scripture,” writes Professor Laidlaw, “spirit denotes life as coming from God; soul, life as constituted in the man” (“Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible,” iv., p. 167). The “spirit” is the energy of a man. As for the soul, in it “lies the centre of his personality” (Orr, “God’s Image in Man,” p. 51).

The view, however, of the writer last quoted, that “spirits that never had bodies could not be called souls” (ibid.), is questionable, as “soul” in Scripture has not “always” the connotation of body; see Leviticus 26:11; Judges 10:16; Isaiah 42:1. If that were so, there could be no objection taken to Kautzsch’s saying (ibid., art. “Religion of the Old Testament”) that in pre-prophetic times Jehovah was conceived of as having bodily form - a remark apparently based on such passages as Exodus 33:23. For the tripartite organism of man see Genesis 2:7. It is brought out clearly in 1 Thessalonians 5:23. “Breath of lives” in Genesis seems to suggest a continuity for the spirit which science recognizes in respect of the body. If this be so, the Creationists and Traducianists (see Liddon, “Elements of Religion,” pp. 98-104), represented by Romanists and Lutherans respectively, share truth between them. 36 Luke 1:56. - Here comes in Matthew 1:18 ff. 37 Luke 1:59. - The word ἐκάλουν is well rendered by Carr, “were for calling.” The naming of a child was by Jewish custom independent of its circumcision. 38 Luke 1:68-79. - The “Benedictus.” For the vocabulary here, cf. Psalms 18:2; Psalms 132:17. This canticle seems specially modelled on the prophets (Plummer). In verse 77 “salvation,” not found in Matthew and Mark, is a link with John’s Gospel (cf. note 1). “Since the world began”; American Revision, “of old.” 39 Luke 1:72. - “To fulfil” (ποιεῖν), cf. 10: 37 (“show,” see note there), and in the Old Testament, Genesis 21:23; Joshua 2:12; Judges 1:24; Psalms 119:65. 39a Luke 1:74. - See Dr. Chalmers’ sermon on “The Right Fear and the Right Faith.” 40 Luke 1:75. - “Piety,” ὁσιότης, Carr: “A conscientious obedience to God. . . . a wider word than δικαιοσύνη, obedience to law.” 41 Luk 1:77. - “Deliverance”; or “salvation” (σωτηρία). Cf. Psalms of Solomon 17: 36: Messiah’s removal of sin by His powerful word. “Zacharias and Elizabeth” forms subject of a discourse by Dr. Whyte in his “Bible Characters,” No. LXXII. 42 Luk 1:80. - Some think that here, as at Luke 2:40; Luke 2:52; Luke 4:13; there is mark of the conclusion of a separate document each time. The idea is discredited, amongst others, by Ramsay, p. 86 f.

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The preface of Luke’s gospel is as instructive as the introduction of either of the two preceding gospels. It is obvious to any serious reader that we enter a totally different province, though all be equally divine; but here we have a stronger prominence given to human motive and feeling. To one who needed to learn more of Jesus, writes another godly man, inspired of God, but without drawing particular attention to the fact of inspiration, as if this were a doubtful matter; but, on the contrary, assuming, as all Scripture does, without express statement, that the written word is the word of God. The purpose is, to set before a fellow Christian — a man of rank, but a disciple — an account, full, accurate, and orderly, of the Lord Jesus, such as one might give that had thorough acquaintance with all the truth of the matter, but in fact such as none could give who was not inspired of God for the purpose. He lets us know that there were many of these memoirs formed on the tradition of those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. These works have departed; they were human. They were, no doubt, well-intentioned; at least there is here no question of heretics perverting the truth, but of men attempting in their own wisdom to set forth that which only God was competent rightly to make known. At the same time Luke, the writer of this gospel, apprises us of his motives, instead of presenting a bare and needless statement of the revelation he had received. “It seemed good to me also,” etc., is in contrast with these many that had taken it in hand. They had done the work in their fashion, he after another sort, as he proceeds next to explain. Clearly he does not refer to Matthew or Mark, but to accounts that were then handed about among Christians. It could not be otherwise than that many would essay to publish a relation of facts so weighty and engrossing, which, if they had not themselves seen, They had gathered from eye-witnesses conversant with the Lord. These memoirs were floating about. The Holy Ghost distinguishes the writer of this Gospel from these men quite as much as joins him with them.

He states that they depended upon those who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word. He says nothing of the kind about himself, as has been rashly inferred from the phrase “to me also,” etc., but, as is evident, proceeds to give a wholly different source for his own handling of the matter. In short, he does not intimate that his account of these things was derived from eye-witnesses, yet speaks of his thorough acquaintance with all from the very first, without telling us how he came by it. As for the others, they had taken in hand to “set forth in order a declaration of these things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eye-witnesses.” He does not impute falsehood; he affirms that their histories were derived from the traditions of men who saw, heard, and waited on Christ here below; but he attributes no divine character to these numerous writers, and intimates the need of a surer warrant for the faith and instruction of disciples. This he claims to give in his gospel. His own qualification for the task was, as one that had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto Theophilus in order that he “might know the certainty of those things wherein he had been instructed.” In that expression, “from the very first,” he lets us into a difference between his own gospel and the memoirs current among Christians. “From the very first”, means that it was an account from the origin or outset, and is fairly rendered in our version. So it is that we find in Luke that he traces things with great fulness, and lays before the reader the circumstances that preceded and that accompanied the whole life of our Lord Jesus Christ up to His ascension to heaven. Now, he does not enter more than other inspired writers do into an assertion or explanation of his inspired character, which Scripture assumes everywhere. He does not tell us how it was he acquired his perfect understanding of all he communicates. It is not the way of inspired writers to do either. They speak “with authority,” even as our Lord taught “with authority;” “not as the scribes” or tradition-mongers. He claims indeed the fullest acquaintance with the subject, and the statement of which would not suit any other evangelist but Luke. It is one who, though inspired like the rest, was drawing his friend and brother with the cords of a man.

Inspiration does not as a rule in the least degree interfere with the individuality of the man; still less would it here where Luke is writing of the Son of God as man, born of a woman, and this to another man. Hence he brings out in the preface his own thoughts, feelings, materials for the work, and the blessed aim contemplated.

This is the only gospel addressed to a man. This naturally fits, and lets us into the character of the gospel. We are here about to see our Lord Jesus preeminently set forth as man, man most really as such — not so much the Messiah, though, of course, that He is; nor even the minister; but the man. Undoubtedly, even as man He is the Son of God, and so He is called in the very first chapter of this gospel. The Son of God He was, as born into the world; not only Son of God before He entered the world, but Son of God from everlasting. That holy thing which should be born of the virgin was to be called the Son of God.

Such was His title in that point of view, as having, a body prepared Him, born of a woman, even of the Virgin Mary. Clearly, therefore, this indicates, from the beginning of the gospel, the predominance given to the human side of the Lord Jesus here.

What was manifest in Jesus, in every work and in every word of His, displayed what was divine; but He was none the less man; and He is here viewed as such in everything. Hence, therefore, it was of the deepest interest to have the circumstances unerringly marked out in which this wondrous man entered the world, and walked up and down here. The Spirit of God deigns by Luke to open the whole scene, from those that surrounded the Lord with the various occasions that appealed to His heart, till His ascension. But there is another reason also for the peculiar beginning of St. Luke. Thus, as he of the evangelists most of all approaches the great apostle of the Gentiles, of whom to a certain extent he was the companion, as we know from the Acts of the Apostles, counted by the apostle one of his fellow-labourers, too, we find him acting, by the Holy Ghost’s guidance, upon that which was the great distinguishing character of the apostle Paul’s service and testimony — “To the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.” Accordingly our gospel, although it is essentially Gentile, as it was addressed to a Gentile and written by a Gentile, begins with an announcement that is more Jewish than any other of the four gospels. It was precisely so with Paul in his service. He began with the Jew. Very soon the Jews proceeded to reject the word, and prove themselves unworthy of eternal life. Paul turned to the Gentiles. The same thing is true of our gospel, so akin to the apostle’s writings, that some of the early Christian writers imagined that this was the meaning of an expression of the apostle Paul, far better understood of late.

I refer to it now, not because of any truth in that notion, for the remark is totally false; but at the same time, it shows that there was a kind of feeling of the truth underneath the error. They used to imagine that Paul meant the gospel of Luke when he said, “My [or our] Gospel.” Happily most of my hearers understand the true bearing of the phrase enough to detect so singular an error; but still it does show that even the dullest of men could not avoid perceiving that there was a tone of thought, and current of feeling, in the gospel of Luke which harmonized very largely with the apostle Paul’s testimony. Yet it was not at all as bringing out what the apostle Paul calls his gospel, or “the mystery of the gospel,” etc.; but certainly it was the great moral groundwork through which it lay — at any rate, which most thoroughly accorded with, and prepared for it. Hence it is, after presenting Christ in the richest grace to the godly Jewish remnant, that we have first and fully given by Luke the account of God’s bringing the first-begotten Son into this world, having it in His purpose to put in relation with Him the whole human race, and most especially preparing the way for His grand designs. and counsels with regard to the Gentiles. Nevertheless, first of all, He justifies Himself in His ways, and shows that He was ready to accomplish every promise that He had made to the Jews. What we have, therefore, in the first two chapters of Luke, is God’s vindication in the Lord Jesus presented as the One in whom He was ready to make good all His old pledges to Israel. Hence the whole scene agrees with this feeling on God’s part towards Israel. A priest is seen righteous according to the law, bus his wife without that offspring which the Jews looked for as the mark of God’s favour towards them. Now God was visiting the earth in grace; and, as Zechariah ministered in the priest’s office, an angel, even there a stranger, except for purposes of pity towards the miserable betimes (John 5:1-47), but long unseen as the witness of the glorious ways of God, announced to him the birth of a son, the forerunner of the Messiah. The unbelief even of the godly in Israel was apparent in the conduct of Zacharias; and God reproved it with inflicted dumbness, but failed not in His own grace. This, however, was but the harbinger of better things; and the angel of the Lord was despatched on a second errand, and re-announces that most ancient revelation of a fallen paradise, that mightiest promise of God, which stands out from all others to the fathers and in the prophets, and which, indeed, was to compass within itself the accomplishment of all the promises of God. He makes known to the virgin Mary a birth no way connected with nature, and yet the birth of a real man; for that man was the Son of the Highest — a man to sit upon the throne, so long vacant, of His father David. Such was the word. I need not say that there were truths still more blessed and profounder than this of the throne of Israel, accompanying that announcement, on which it is impossible to dwell now, if we are tonight to traverse any considerable part of our gospel. Suffice it to say, we have thus all the proofs of God’s favour to Israel, and faithfulness to His promises, both in the forerunner of the Messiah, and in the birth of the Messiah Himself. Then follows the lovely burst of praise from the mother of our Lord, and soon after, when the tongue of him that was smitten dumb was loosed, Zacharias speaks, first of all to praise the Lord for His infinite grace. Luke 2:1-52 pursues the same grand truths: only there is more at hand. The opening verses bring this before us. God was good to Israel, and was displaying His faithfulness accordingly to, not the law, but His promises. How truly the people were in bondage. Hostile Gentiles had the upper hand. The last great empire predicted in Daniel was then in power. “It came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed [or enrolled]. (And this taxing [or enrolment] was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one to his own city.” Such was the thought of the world, of the imperial power of that day, the great Roman beast or empire.

But if there was a decree from Caesar, there was a most gracious purpose in God. Caesar might indulge his pride, and count the world his own, in the exaggerated style of human ambition and self-complacency; but God was now manifesting what He was, and oh, what a contrast.

The Son of God, by this very deed, providentially enters the world at the promised place, Bethlehem. He enters it after a different sort from what we could have ever drawn from the first gospel, where we have Bethlehem still more significant]y mentioned: at any rate, prophecy is cited on the occasion as to the necessity of its being there. That information even the scribes could render to the Magi who came to adore. Here there is nothing of the sort. The Son of God is found not even in an inn, but in the manger, where the poor parents of the Saviour laid him. Every mark follows of the reality of a human birth, and of a human being; but it was Christ the Lord, the witness of the saving, healing, forgiving, blessing grace of God.

Not only is His cross thus significant, but His birth, the very place and circumstances being all most evidently prepared. Nor this only; for although we see not here Magi from the East, with their royal gifts, their gold, and frankincense, and myrrh, laid at the feet of the infant king of the Jews, here we have, what I am persuaded was yet more beautiful morally, angelic converse; and suddenly, with the angel (for heaven is not so far off), the choirs of heaven praising God, while the shepherds of earth kept their flocks in the path of humble duty. Impossible, without ruining, to invert these things! Thus you could not transplant the scene of the Magi into Luke, neither would the introduction of the shepherds, thus visited by the grace of God by night, be so proper in Matthew. What a tale this last told of where God’s heart is! How evident from the very first it was, that to the poor the gospel was preached, and how thoroughly in keeping with this Gospel! and we might truly affirm the same — I will not say of the glory that Saul saw and taught — but most certainly of the grace of God which Paul preached also. This does not hinder that still there is a testimony to Israel; although sundry signs and tokens, the very introduction of the Gentile power, and the moral features of the case, also make it evident that there is something more than a question of Israel and their King. Nevertheless, there meets us here the fullest witness of grace to Israel.

So even in the words, somewhat weakened in our version, where it is said, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy, which shall be,” — not to all people, but “to all the people.” This passage does not go beyond Israel. Manifestly this is entirely confirmed by the context, even if one did not know a word of that language, which, of course, proves what I am now advancing. In the next verse it is, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” It is evident that, as far as this goes, He is introduced strictly as the One who was to bring in His own person the accomplishment of the promises to Israel. The angels go farther when they say, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will in men.” It is not exactly good will toward men, which is here the point. The word expresses God’s good will and complacency in men; it does not say exact]y in man, as if it were only in Christ, though surely this was true in the very highest sense. For the Son of God became, not an angel, but really a man, according to Hebrews ii. It was not the cause of angels that He undertook, or was interested about: it was men He took up. But here appears a good deal more: it is God’s delight in man now that His Son is become a man, and witnessed by that astonishing truth. His delight in men, because His Son becoming a man was the first immediate personal step in that which was to introduce His righteousness in justifying sinful men by the cross and resurrection of Christ, which is at hand.

Thereby in virtue of that ever-accepted person, and the efficacy of His work of redemption, He could have also the selfsame delight in those that were once guilty sinners, now the objects of His grace for ever. But here, at any rate, the person, and the condition of the person too, by whom all this blessing was to be procured and given, were before His eyes. By the condition of the person is meant, of course, that the Son of God was now incarnate, which even in itself was no small proof, as well as pledge, of the complacency of God in man. Afterwards Jesus is shown us circumcised, the very offering that accompanied the act proving also still more the earthly circumstances of His parents — their deep poverty. Then comes the affecting scene in the temple, where the aged Simon lifts up the child in his arms; for it had been “revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.” So he goes by the Spirit into the temple at this very time. “And when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.” It is evident that the whole tone is not what we may call formal; it was not that the work was done; but undoubtedly there was virtually in Christ “God’s salvation” — a most suitable truth and phrase for the companion of him whose fundamental point was “God’s righteousness.” The Spirit might not yet say “God’s righteousness”, but He could say “God’s salvation.” It was the person of the Saviour, viewed according to the prophetic Spirit, who would, in due time, make good everything as to God and man. “Thy salvation which thou hast prepared before the face of all people: a light to lighten”, — or rather to reveal “the Gentiles;” a light for the revelation of the Gentiles- “and the glory of thy people Israel.” I do not regard the former as a millennial description. In the millennium the order would be exactly inverse; for then God will assuredly assign to Israel the first place, and to the Gentiles the second. The Spirit gives Simeon a little advance upon the terms of the prophetic testimony in the Old Testament. The babe, Christ, was a light, he says, for the revelation of the Gentiles, and for the glory of His people Israel. The revelation of the Gentiles, that which was about to follow full soon, would be the effect of the rejection of Christ. The Gentiles, instead of lying hidden as they had been in the Old Testament times, unnoticed in the dealings of God, and instead of being put into a subordinate place to that of Israel, as they will be by and by in the millennium, were, quite distinctly from both, now to come into prominence, as no doubt the glory of the people Israel will follow in that day.

Here, indeed, we see the millennial state; But the light to lighten the Gentiles far more fully finds its answer in the remarkable place which the Gentiles enter now by the excision of the Jewish branches of the olive tree. This, I think, is confirmed by what we find afterwards. Simeon does not pretend to bless the child; but when he blesses the parents, he says to Mary, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel.” It is plain that the Spirit gave him to set forth the Messiah cut off, and the effect of it, “for a sign,” he adds, “that shall be spoken against. Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also” — a word that was accomplished in the feelings to Mary at the cross of the Lord Jesus. But there is more: Christ’s shame acts as a moral probe, as it is said here- “That the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” May I not ask, where could we find such language, except in Luke? Tell me, if you can, any other of the evangelists, whom it would suit for a moment? Nor is it only to these words I would call your attention, as eminently characteristic of our gospel. Take the mighty grace of God revealed in Christ, on the one hand; on the other, take the dealing with the hearts of men as the result of the cross morally. These are the two main peculiarities which distinguish the writings of Luke. Accordingly also we find that, the note of grace being once struck in the heart of Simeon, as well as of those immediately connected with our Lord Jesus in His birth, it extends itself widely, for joy cannot be stifled or hid. So the good news must flow from one to another, and God takes care that Anna the prophetess should come in; for here we have the revival, not only of angel visits, but of the prophetic Spirit in Israel. “And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age,” and had waited long in faith, but, as ever, was not disappointed. “She was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And she coming in that instant,” etc. How good the Lord is in thus ordering circumstances, no less than preparing the heart! “She, coming in that instant, gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of Him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.” Nor is this all the Spirit gives here. The chapter closes with a picture of our Saviour that is admirably consonant to this gospel, and to no other; for what gospel would it suit to speak of our Lord as a youth? to give us a moral sketch of this wondrous One, now no longer the babe of Bethlehem, but in the lowly company of Mary and Joseph, grown up to the age of twelve years? He is found, according to the order of the law, duly with His parents in Jerusalem for the great feast; but He is there as one to whom the word of God was most precious, and who had more understanding than His teachers. For Him, viewed as man, there was not only the growth of the body, but also development in every other way that became man, always expanding, yet always perfect, as truly man as God. “He increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” But there is more than this; for the inspired writer lets us know how He was reproached by His parents, who could but little understand what it was for Him even then to find His meat in doing the will of God. As they journeyed from Jerusalem, missing Him, they return, and find Him in the midst of the doctors. A delicate place it might seem for a youth, but in Him how beautiful was all! and what propriety! “Both hearing them”, it is said, “and asking them questions.” Even the Saviour, though full of divine knowledge, does not take the place now of teaching with authority — never, of course, as the scribes.

But even though consciously Son and the Lord God, still was He the child Jesus; and as became One who deigned to be such, in the midst of those older in years, though they knew infinitely less than Himself, there was the sweetest and most comely lowliness. “Both hearing them, and asking them questions.” What grace there was in the questions of Jesus! — what infinite wisdom in the presence of the darkness of these famous teachers! Still, which of these jealous rabbis could discern the smallest departure from exquisite and absolute propriety?

Nor this only; for we are told that “his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And He said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” The secret thus early comes out. He waited for nothing. He needed no voice from heaven to tell Him that He was the Son of God; He needed no sign of the Holy Ghost descending to assure Him of His glory or mission. These were, no doubt, seen and heard; and it was all right in its season, and important in its place; but I repeat that He needed nothing to impart the consciousness that He was the Son of the Father. He knew it intrinsically, and entirely independent of a revelation from another. There was, no doubt, that divine gift imparted to Him afterwards, when the Holy Ghost sealed the man Christ Jesus. “Him hath God the Father sealed,” as it is said, and surely quite right. But the notable fact here is, that at this early age, when a youth twelve years old, He has the distinct consciousness that He was the Son, as no one else was or could be. At the same time He returns with His parents, and is as dutiful in obedience to them as if He were only an unblemished child of man — their child. The Son of the Father He was, as really as the Son of man. “He came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them.” It is the divine person, but the perfect man, perfect in every relation suitable for such a person. Both these truths, therefore, prove themselves to be true, not more in doctrine than in fact. Then a new scene opens in Luke 3:1-38. “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar” (for men soon pass away, and slight is the trace left by the course of earth’s great ones), “Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.” How strange is this state of things! Not only have we the chief power of the world passed into another hand; not only do we see the Edomite — a political confusion in the land, but a religious Babel too. What a departure from all divine order! Who ever heard of two high priests before? Such were the facts when the manifestation of the Christ drew near, “Annas and Caiaphas being, the high priests.” No changes in the world, nor abasement in the people of the Lord, nor strange conjunction of the priests, nor mapping, out of the land by the stranger, would interfere with the purposes of grace; which, on the contrary, loves to take up men and things at their worst, and shows what God is towards the needy. So John the Baptist goes forth here, not as we traced him in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, but with a special character stamped upon him akin to the design of Luke. “He came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” Here we see the remarkable largeness of his testimony. “Every valley shall be filled,” he says, “and every mountain and hill shall be brought low.” Such a quotation puts him virtually in connection with the Gentiles, and not merely with the Jew or Jewish purposes. “All flesh,” it is therefore added, “shall see the salvation of God.” It is evident that the terms intimate the widening of divine grace in its sphere. This is apparent in the manner in which John the Baptist speaks. When he addresses the multitude, observe how he deals with them. It is not a question now of reproving Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, as in Matthew, but while he here solemnly warns the multitude, the evangelist records his words to each class. They were the same as in the days of the prophets; they were no better after all. Man was far from God: he was a sinner; and, without repentance and faith, what could avail their religious privileges?

To what corruption had they not been led through unbelief? “O generation of vipers,” he says, “who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father.” This, again, accounts for the details of the different classes that come before John the Baptist, and the practical dealing with the duties of each — an important thing, I believe, for us to bear in mind; for God thinks of souls; and whenever we have real moral discipline according to His mind, there is a dealing with men as they are, taking them up in the circumstances of their every-day life. Publicans, soldiers, people — they each hear respective]y their own proper word. So in that repentance, which the gospel supposes as its invariable accompaniment, it is of moment to bear in mind that, while all have gone astray, each has also followed his own way. But, again, we have his testimony to the Messiah. “And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ or not; John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire: whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable. And many other things in his exhortation preached he unto the people.” . And here, too, you will observe an evident and striking illustration of Luke’s manner. Having introduced John, he finishes his history before he turns to the subject of the Lord Jesus. Therefore he adds the fact, that “Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by him, added yet this above all the evil that he had done, that he shut up John in prison.” Hence it is clear that the order of Luke is not here, at any rate, that of historic fact. This is nothing peculiar.

Any one who is at all acquainted with historians, either ancient or modern, must know that they do the same thing. It is common and almost inevitable.

Not that they all do so, any more than all the evangelists; but still it is the way of many historians, who are reckoned amongst the most exact, not to arrange facts like the mere chroniclers of an annual register, which confessedly is rather a dull, rude way of giving us information. They prefer to group the facts into classes, so as to bring out the latent springs, and the consequences even though unsuspected, and, in short, all they desire of moment in the most distinct and powerful manner. Thus Luke, having introduced John here, does not care to interrupt the subsequent account of our Lord, till the embassy of John’s messengers fell into the illustration of another theme. There is no room left for misunderstanding this brief summary of the Baptist’s faithful conduct from first to last, and its consequences. So true is this, that he records the baptism of our Lord by John immediately after the mention that John was put in prison. Chronological sequence here manifestly yields to graver demands. Next comes the baptism of those who resorted to John, and above all of Christ. “And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph,” etc. Now, at first sight, the insertion of a pedigree at this point seems irregular enough; but Scripture is always right, and wisdom is justified of her children. It is the expression of a weighty truth, and in the most fitting, place. The Jewish scene closes. The Lord has been fully shown to the righteous remnant, i.e. what He was to Israel. God’s grace and faithfulness to His promises had presented to them an admirable testimony; and the more so, as it was in the face of the last great or Roman empire.

We have had the priest fulfilling his function in the sanctuary; then the angel’s visits to Zechariah, to Mary, and, final]y, to the shepherds. We have had also the great prophetic sign of Immanuel born of the virgin, and now the forerunner, greater than any prophet, John the Baptist, the precursor of the Christ.

It was all vain. They were a generation of vipers even as John himself testified about them. Nevertheless, on the part of Christ, there was ineffable grace wherever any heeded the call of John albeit the faintest working of divine life in the soul. The confession of the truth of God against themselves, the acknowledgment that they were sinners, drew the heart of Jesus to them. In Him was no sin, no, not the smallest taint of it, nor connection with it: nevertheless, Jesus was with those who repaired to the baptism of John. It was of God. No necessity of sin brought Him there; but, on the contrary, grace the pure fruit of divine grace in Him. He who had nothing to confess or repent was none the less the One that was the very expression of the grace of God.

He would not be separated from those in whom there was the smallest response to the grace of God. Jesus, therefore does not for the present take people out of Israel, so to speak, any more than from among men severally into association with Himself; He associates Himself with those who were thus owning the reality of their moral condition in the sight of God. He would be with them in that recognition, not of course for Himself, as if He personally needed, but their companion in His grace. Depend upon it, that this same truth connects itself with the whole career of the Lord Jesus. Whatever the changes may have been before or at His death, they only illustrated increasingly this mighty and fruitful principle. Who, then, was the baptised man on whom, as He prayed, heaven opened, and the Holy Ghost descended, and a voice from heaven said, “Thou art my beloved Son: in thee I am well pleased”? It was One whom the inspiring Spirit here loves to trace finally up thus: “Which was the Son of Adam, which was the Son of God.” One that was going to be tried as Adam was tried — yea, as Adam never was tried; for it was in no Paradise that this Second Adam was going to meet the tempter, but in the wilderness. It was in the wreck of this world; it was in the scene of death over which God’s judgment hung; it was under such circumstances where it was no question of innocence but of divine power in holiness surrounded by evil, where One who was fully man depended on God, and, where no food, no water was, lived by the word of God. Such, and far far more, was this man Christ Jesus. And hence it is that the genealogy of Jesus seems to me precisely where it ought to be in Luke, as indeed it must be whether we see it or not. In Matthew its insertion would have been strange and inappropriate had it there come after His baptism.

It would have no suitableness there, because what a Jew wanted first of all to know was the birth of Jesus according to the Old Testament prophecies. That was everything, we may say, to the Jew in the first place, to know the Son that was given, and the child that was born, as Isaiah and Micah predicted. Here we see the Lord as a man, and manifesting this perfect grace in man — a total absence of sin; and yet the very One who was found with those who were confessing sin! “The Son of Adam, who was the Son of God.” That means, that He was One who, though man, proved that He was God’s Son. Luke 4:1-44 is grounded upon this; and here it is not merely after the dispensational style of Matthew that we find the quotation given, but thoroughly in a moral point of view. In the gospel of Matthew, in the first temptation, our Lord owns Himself to be man, living not by mere natural resource, but by the word of God; in the second He confesses and denies not Himself further to be Messiah, the temptation being addressed to Him as in this capacity; the last clearly contemplates the glory of the “Son of man.” This I clearly call dispensational. No doubt it was exactly the way in which the temptation occurred. The first temptation was to leave the position of man. This Christ would not do. “Man”, He says, “shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” It is much more important to keep God’s word than to live; and, at any rate, the only living He valued was living as man by God’s word. This is perfection.

Faith holds it for certain that God knows how to take care of man. It was man’s business to keep God’s word: God would not fail to watch over and protect him.

Satan, therefore, was foiled. Then Satan tempted by a quotation from Psalms 91:1-16, which clearly describes the Messiah; assuredly Jesus was not going to deny that. He believed and acted upon it. If He were the Messiah, why not, according to this word, prove God? But the Lord Jesus equally refuted him here, though I need not enter now into the particulars of that which we have already looked at. Then came the last temptation addressed to Him, not as Messiah according to a psalm that refers to it, but rather in His quality of the Son of man about to have all the kingdoms of the world.

Here Satan’s temptation was, “Why do you not come into their possession and enjoyment now?” Jesus would take them only from God, as the rejected of man, and the sufferer for sin, too; not as the living Messiah here below, as if in a hurry to have the promises fulfilled to Him. In vain was the snare spread in His sight; God alone could give, whoever might actually hold, the kingdoms of the world.

The price was too dear to pay, the price of worshipping the devil. Jesus thereon denounces the tempter as Satan. But this is not what we have in our gospel. Here there is no dispensational order of the temptation suitable to the gospel of Matthew. Such an order, which is here that of the facts also, is exactly according to the design of the Holy Spirit in Matthew. But it suits no other gospel. Mark was not called to furnish more than the record of the temptation, with a graphic touch which reveals its dreary scene, and passes on to the active ministry of our blessed Lord. On the other hand, Luke purposely changes the order — a bold step, in appearance, to take, and the more if he knew, as I suppose, what was given by the evangelists who preceded him.

But it was necessary to his design, and God, I hope to show, puts His own seal upon this deviation from mere time. For, first of all, we have Jesus tried here as man.

This must be in every account of the temptation. It is, of course, as man that even the Son of God was tempted of Satan. Here, however, we have, in the second place, the offer of the kingdoms of the world. This, it will be perceived, does not give prominence, like Matthew, to that momentous change of dispensation which ensued on His rejection by the Jew; it does illustrate what the Holy Ghost here puts forward — the temptations rising one above the other in moral weight and import. Such I believe to be the key to the changed order of Luke. The first was a temptation to His personal wants — Hath God said you shall not eat of any thing? Surely you are at liberty to make the stones bread! Faith vindicates God, remains dependent on Him, and is sure of His appearing for us in due time.

Then comes the offer of the kingdoms of the world. If a good man wants to do good, what an offer! But Jesus was here to glorify God. Him He would worship, Him only would He serve. Obedience, obeying God’s will, worshipping Him — such is the shield against all such overtures of the enemy. Lastly comes the third temptation, through the word of God, on the pinnacle of the temple. This is not the worldly appeal, but one addressed to His spiritual feeling. Need I remark, that a spiritual temptation is to a holy person far subtler and deeper than anything which connected itself with either our wants or our wishes as to the world?

Thus there was a personal or bodily, a worldly, and a spiritual temptation. To attain this moral order Luke abandons the sequence of time. Occasionally Matthew, and indeed no one more than he, deserts the simple order of fact whenever it is required by the Spirit’s purpose; but in this case Matthew preserves that order; for it so is that by this means he gives prominence to dispensational truth; while Luke, by arranging the acts of temptation otherwise, brings out their moral bearing in the most admirable and instructive way. Accordingly, from Luke 4:8, “Get thee behind me, Satan: for” disappears in the best authorities. The change of order necessitates the omission. The copyists as often added to Luke what is really the language of Matthew; and even some critics have been so undiscerning as not to detect the imposition.

As it stands in the received Greek text and the English version, Satan is told to go, and seems to stand his ground and again tempt the Lord, stultifying His command. But the clause I have named (and not merely the word “for,” as Bloomfield imagines) is well known to have no claim to stand, as being destitute of adequate authority.

There are good manuscripts that contain the clause, but the weight, for antiquity and character of MSS., and for variety of the old versions, is on the other side, not to speak of the internal evidence, which would be decisive with much inferior external evidence. Hence, too, Satan could hardly be spoken of here as going away like one driven off by indignation, as in Matthew. “And when the devil had ended all the [every] temptation, he departed from him for a season.” This lets us into another very material truth, that Satan only went off till another season, when he should return. And this he did for a yet severer character of trial at the end of the Lord’s life, the account of which is given us with peculiar elaborateness by Luke; for it is his province above all to show the moral import of the agony in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus then returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee. Man was victor over Satan. Unlike the first Adam, the Second Man comes off with energy proved triumphant in obedience. How does He use this power? He repairs to His despised quarters. " And there went out a fame of him to all the region round about. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up.” The fact that follows is mentioned here, and here only, with any detail; whatever allusion there may be to it elsewhere, it is here only we have, by the Spirit of God, this most living and characteristic portrait of our Lord Jesus entering upon His ministry among men according to the purpose and ways of divine grace. Deeds of power are but the skirts of His glory. It is not, as Mark opens it out to us, teaching as nobody ever taught, and then dealing with the unclean spirit before them all. This is not the inauguration we have in Luke, any more than a crowd of miracles, at once the herald and the seal of His doctrine, as in Matthew. Neither is it individual dealing with souls, as in John, who shows Him attracting the hearts of those that were with the Baptist or at their lawful occupations, and calling them to follow Him. Here He goes into the synagogue, as His custom was, and stands up to read. “And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias.” What a moment! He who is God was become man, and deigns to act as such among men. “And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it is written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.” It is the man Christ Jesus. The Spirit of the Lord was not upon Him as God, but as man, and so anointed Him to preach the gospel to the poor. How thoroughly suitable to what we have already seen. “He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.

And he began to say unto them, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in you ears.” A real man was there and then the vessel of the grace of God upon the earth, and the Scripture designates this most fully. But where could we find this most apt application of the prophet except in Luke, to whom in point of fact it is peculiar? The entire gospel develops or, at least, accords with it. “They all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth,” but immediately they turn to unbelief, saying, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” “And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.” He had been already at work in what Matthew calls “his city;”, but the Spirit of God here passes over entirely what had been done there. He would thus ensure the fullest lustre to the “grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we, through his poverty, night be made rich.” This is what we have in Luke. Our Lord then shows the moral root of the difficulty in their minds. “Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.” Our Lord does not yet call a publican or receive a Gentile, as in Luke 5:1-39; Luke 7:1-50; but He tells of the grace of God in that word which they read and heard, but understood not. It was His answer to the incredulity of the Jews, His brethren after the flesh. How solemn are the warnings of grace!

It was a Gentile, and not a Jewish widow, who during the days of Israel’s apostacy became the marked object of God’s mercy. So, too, “many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet, and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.” At once the hostile rage of the natural man is roused, and his jealousy of divine goodness to the stranger. Those that wondered the moment before at His gracious words are now filled with fury, ready to rend Him. “And they rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he, passing through the midst of them, went his way, and came down to Capernaum, and taught them on the Sabbath days. And they were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power.” It is the word that has especial prominence in Luke; and justly so, because the word is the expression of what God is to man, even as it is the word which tries him. These are the two qualities, therefore, of the gospel: what God is towards man; and what man is, now revealed and proclaimed and brought home by the word of God. Thereby God’s grace shines out; thereby, too, the evil of man is morally proved — not merely by the law, but yet more by the word that comes in, and by the person of Christ. Man, however, hates it, and no wonder; for, however full of mercy, it leaves no room for the pride, the vanity, the self-righteousness, in short, the importance of man in any way. There is one good, even God. But this is not all the truth; for the power of Satan is active on the earth. It was then too plain, too universal, to be overlooked; and if man was so unbelieving as to the glory of Jesus, Satan at least felt the power. So it was with the man who had an unclean spirit. “He cried out with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.” Remark here how Jesus, the fulfilment and fulfiller of God’s word, accomplishes law and promise, the prophets and the Psalms. Devils own Him as the Holy One of God and again, we shall see presently, as the Anointed (Christ), the Son of God. In Luke 5:1-39 He is seen acting rather as Jehovah. “And Jesus rebuked him, saying hold thy peace, and come out of him.

And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not.” This proves, therefore, that there was in Christ not only grace towards man’s necessities, but power over Satan. He had vanquished Satan, and proceeds to use His power in behalf of man. He then enters into Simon’s house, and heals his wife’s mother. “Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them. And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak: for they knew that he was Christ.” Here we coalesce with the earlier gospels. When this attracted the attention of men He departs. Instead of using what people call “influence”, He will not hear of the people’s desire to retain Him in their midst. He walks in faith, the Holy One of God, content with nothing that made man an object to obscure His glory. If followed into a desert place, away from the crowd that admired Him, He lets them know that He must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also; for therefore was He sent. “And he was preaching in the synagogues of Galilee.” And now we have, in the beginning, of the fifth chapter, a fact taken entirely out of its historical place. It is the call of the earlier apostles, more particularly of Simon, who is singled out, just as we have seen one blind man, or one demoniac, brought into relief, even though there might be more. So the son of Jonas is the great object of the Lord’s grace here, although others were called at the same time. There were companions of his leaving all for Christ; but we have his case, not theirs, dealt with in detail. Now, from elsewhere, we know that this call of Peter preceded the Lord’s entrance into Simon’s house, and the healing of Simon’s wife’s mother. We also know that John’s gospel has preserved for us the first occasion when Simon ever saw the Lord Jesus, as Mark’s gospel shows when it was that Simon was called away from his ship and occupation.

Luke had given us the Lord’s grace with and towards man, from the synagogue at Nazareth down to His preaching everywhere in Galilee, casting out devils, and healing diseases by the way. This is essentially a display in Him of the power of God by the word, and this over Satan and all the afflictions of men. A complete picture of all this is given first; and in order to leave it unbroken, the particulars of Simon’s call are left out of its time. But as the way of the Lord on that occasion was of the deepest value as well as interest to be given, it was reserved for this place. This illustrates the method of classifying facts morally, instead of merely recording them as they came to pass, which is characteristic of Luke. “It came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets. And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed him that be would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship. Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. And Simon answering, said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.” It is plain that the word of Jesus was the first great trial. Simon had already and long, toiled; but the word of Jesus is enough. “And when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake.

And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.” Next, we have the moral effect. “When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus, knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” It was the most natural thing possible for a soul arrested, not merely by the mighty deed which the Lord had wrought, but by such a proof that His word could be trusted implicitly — that divine power answered to the word of the man Christ Jesus.

His sinfulness glared on his conscience. Christ’s word let the light of God into his soul: “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man.” There was real sense of sin and confession; yet the attitude of Peter at the feet of Jesus shows that nothing was farther from his heart than that the Lord should leave him, though his conscience felt that so it ought to be. He was convicted more deeply of his sinful state than he had ever been before. Already a real attraction had knit Simon’s heart to Christ. He was born of God, as far as we can judge, before this. He had really for some while known and heard the voice of Jesus.

This was not the first time, as John gives us to see. But now the word so penetrated and searched him out, that this utterance was the feeling of his soul — an apparent contradiction to draw near to the feet of Jesus, saying, Depart from me, but not in the root of things — an inconsistency only on the surface of his words; for his innermost feeling, was one of desire after and delight in Jesus, clinging to Him with all his soul, but with the strongest conviction that he had not the slightest claim to be there — that he could even pronounce condemnation on himself otherwise in a certain sense, though quite contrary to all his wishes.

The more he saw what Jesus was, the less fit company he felt himself to be for such an One as He. This is precisely what grace does produce in its earlier workings. I say not, in its earliest, but in its earlier workings; for we must not be in too great a hurry with the ways of God in the soul. Astonished at this miracle, Peter thus speaks to the Lord; but the gracious answer sets him at ease. “Fear not,” says Christ; “from henceforth thou shalt catch men.” My object in referring to the passage is for the purpose of pointing out the moral force of our Gospel. It was a divine person who, if He displayed the knowledge and power of God, revealed Himself in grace, but also morally to the conscience, though it cast out fear. Then follows the cure of the leper, and subsequently the forgiveness of the palsied man: again the exhibition that Jehovah was there, and fulfilling the Spirit of Psa 103:1-22; but He was the Son of man too. Such was the mystery of His person present in grace, which was proved by the power of God in one wholly dependent on God. Finally, there is the call of Levi the publican; the Lord showing, also, how well aware He was of the effect on man of introducing among those accustomed to law the reality of grace. In truth, it is impossible to mingle the new wine of grace with the old bottles of human ordinances. The Lord adds what is found in no gospel but Luke’s, that man prefers, in presence of the new thing from God, the old religious feelings, thoughts, ways, doctrines, habits, and customs. “No man”, He says, “having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.” Man prefers the dealing of law with all its dimness, uncertainty, and distance from God, to that divine grace infinitely more blessed, which in Christ displays God to man, and brings man, by the blood of His cross, to God. In Luke 6:1-49 this is followed up. We see the Lord on the two Sabbath days: the defence of the disciples for plucking the ears of corn, and the well-nigh defiant cure of the withered hand in the synagogue. The Lord does not pluck the ears of corn Himself; but He defends the guiltless, and this on moral ground. We do not here meet with the particulars set forth dispensationally as in Matthew’s gospel: though the reference is to the same facts, they are not so reasoned upon. There the subject is much more the approaching change of economy: here it is more moral. A similar remark applies to the ease of healing the withered hand.

The Sabbath, or seal of the old covenant, was never given of God, thou, abused by man, to hinder His goodness to the needy and wretched. But the Son of man was Lord of the Sabbath: and grace is free to bless man and glorify God. Immediately after this, clouds gather over the devoted head of our Lord; “They were filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus.” The Lord retires to a mountain, continuing all night in prayer to God. On the next day, out of the disciples He chooses twelve who were pre-eminently to represent Him after His departure. That is, He nominates the twelve apostles. At the same time He delivers what is commonly called the sermon on the mount. But there are striking differences between the manner of Luke and Matthew, in conveying that sermon to us; for Luke brings two contrasts together; one of which was dropped by Matthew — at any rate in this, the beginning of his gospel. Luke couples the blessings and the woes; Matthew reserves his woes for another occasion, for that one would affirm that the Lord did not proclaim the woes of Mat 13:1-58 on another and later occasion; but it may be safely said, that the first evangelist passed by all questions of woes for the discourse on the mount.

Luke, on the contrary, furnishes both. Who can fail to recognize in this circumstance a striking mark; both of the evangelists, and of the special designs of Him who inspired them? Luke does not confine himself to the bright side, but adds also the solemn. There is a warning for conscience, as much as there is grace which appeals to the heart It is Luke that gives it and most gloriously. Besides, there is another difference. Matthew presents Christ alone as the lawgiver.

No doubt greater than Moses He was; He was Jehovah, Emmanuel. Therefore He takes the place of deepening, enlarging, and ever bringing in principles so infinitely better as to eclipse what was said to them of old. Thus, while the authority of the law and prophets is maintained, there is now an incalculable change, in advance of all before, suitably to the presence of His glory who then spoke, and to the revelation of the Father’s name More even was yet to be; but this was reserved for the presence in power of the Holy Ghost, as we are told in John 16:1-33. Here, in the gospel of Luke, another course is pursued. It is not as One who lays down principles or describes the classes that can have part in the kingdom, as “Blessed the poor” etc.: but the Lord views, and speaks to, His disciples, as those immediately concerned; “Blessed ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.” It is all personal, in view of the godly company that then surrounded Him. So He says, “Blessed ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed ye that weep now”’ etc. It was sorrow and suffering now; for He who fulfilled the promises, and psalms, and prophets was rejected; and the kingdom could not yet come in power and glory. “He must first suffer many things.” Thus all through it is not description alone, but a direct address to the heart In Matthew it was most appropriately a general discourse. Here it is made immediately applicable. That is, He looks at the persons then before Him, and pronounces a blessing upon them distinctly and personally. For that reason, as also for others, He says nothing about suffering for righteousness’ sake here In Matthew there are the two characters — those blessed when persecuted for righteousness’ sake, and yet more those who were persecuted for His name’s sake. Luke omits the righteousness: all persecution here noticed is on account of the Son of man. How blessed it is in Luke to find that the great witness of grace acts Himself in the spirit of that grace, and makes this to be the one distinguishing feature. Both sufferers are surely blessed; each is in his own season precious; but the least portion is not that which characterizes the word of the Lord in his gospel who has mainly in view us who were poor sinners of the Gentiles. In Luke the points pressed are not detailed contrasts with the law, nor the value of righteousness in secret with the Father, nor trust in His loving care without anxiety, but practical grace in loving our enemies, merciful as our Father is merciful, and so children of the Highest, with the assurance of corresponding recompence. Then comes the warning parable of the blindness of the religious world’s leaders and the value of personal reality and obedience, instead of moralising for others, which would end in ruin. In the chapter that follows (Luke 7:1-50) we shall see the Lord still more evidently proving that grace cannot be tied to Jewish limits, that His was a power which the Gentile owns to be absolute over all — yea, over death as well as nature. But before we pass on, let me observe that there is another feature also that strikes us in Luke, though it does not call for many words now. It appears that various portions of the sermon on the mount were reserved for insertion here and there, where they would it in best for comment on or connection with facts. The reason is, that moral grouping of conversations which has been already shown to be according to the method of Luke. Here there is not at all the same kind of formal order of discourse as in Matthew. There were, I doubt not, questions asked during its course; and the Holy Ghost has been pleased to give us specimens of this in the gospel of Luke. I may show on another occasion, that this which occurs not infrequently throughout the whole central part of Luke is found in him only. It is for the most part made up of this association of facts, with remarks either growing out of what has occurred, or suitable to them, and therefore transplanted from elsewhere. In chapter 7 the healing of the centurion’s servant is recounted, with very striking differences from the form in which he had it in Matthew. Here we are told that the centurion, when he heard of Jesus, sent unto Him the elders of the Jews. The man who does not understand the design of the gospel, and has only heard that Luke wrote especially for the Gentiles, is at once arrested by this. He objects to the hypothesis that this fact is irreconcilable with a Gentile bearing, and is, on the contrary, rather in favour of a Jewish aim, at least here; because in Matthew you find nothing about the embassy of the Jews, while here it is in Luke. His conclusion is, that one gospel is as much Jewish or Gentile as another, and that the notion of special design is baseless. All this may sound plausible to a superficial reader; but in truth the twofold fact, when duly stated, remarkably confirms the different scope of the gospels, instead of neutralizing it; for the centurion in Luke was led, both being Gentiles, to honour the Jews in the special place God has put them in.

He therefore sets a value on this embassy to the Jews. The precise contrast of this we have in Romans 11:1-36, where the Gentiles are warned against high-mindedness and conceit. It was because of Jewish unbelief, no doubt, that certain branches were broken off; but the Gentiles were to see that they abode in God’s goodness, not falling into similar and worse evil, or else they also should be cut off. This was most wholesome admonition from the apostle of the uncircumcision to the saints in the great capital of the Gentile world. Here the Gentile centurion shows both his faith and his humility by manifesting the place which God’s people had in his eyes. He did not arrogantly talk of looking only to God. Allow me to say, brethren, that this is a principle of no small value, and in more ways than one. There is often a good deal of unbelief — not open, of course, but covert — which cloaks itself under the profession of superior and sole dependence on God, and boasts itself aloud of its leaving any and every man out of account. Nor do I deny that there are, and ought to be, cases where God alone must act, convince, and satisfy. But the other side is true also; and this is precisely what we see in the case of the centurion. There was no proud panacea of having to do only with God, and not man. On the contrary, he shows, by his appeal to and use of the Jewish elders, how truly he bowed to the ways and will of God.

For God had a people, and the Gentile owned the people as of His choice, spite of their unworthiness; and if he wanted the blessing for his servant, he would send for the elders of the Jews that they might plead for him with Jesus. To me there seems far more of faith, and of the lowliness which faith produces, than if he had gone personally and alone. The secret of his action was, that he was a man not only of faith, but of faith-wrought humility; and this is a most precious fruit, wherever it grows and blooms. Certainly the good Gentile centurion sends his ambassadors of Israel, who go and tell what was most true and proper (yet I can hardly think it what the centurion ever put in their mouth). “And when they came to Jesus, they besought him instantly, saying, That he was worthy for whom he should do this: for he loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue.” He was a godly man; and it was no new thing, this love for the Jews, and the practical proof of it. It will be observed, again, that Matthew has not a word about this fact; and cannot but feel how blessed is the omission there. Had Matthew been writing merely as a man for the Jews, it was just the thing he would have surely fastened on; but the inspiring power of the Spirit wrought, and grace, I do not doubt, also, in Matthew as well as in Luke, and thus only have we the fruit now apparent in their accounts. It was fitting that the evangelist for the Jews should both leave out the (Gentile’s strong expression of respect for Israel, and dwell upon the warning to the proud children of the kingdom. Equally fitting was it that Luke, in writing for Gentile instruction, should especially let us see the love and esteem for God’s sake which a godly Gentile had for the Jews. Here was no scorn for their low estate, but so much the more compassion; yea, more than compassion, for his desire after their mediation proved the reality of his respect for the chosen nation. It was not a new feeling; he had long low loved them, and built them a synagogue in days when he sought nothing at their hands; and they remember it now.

The faith of this Gentile was such, that the Lord avows He had not seen the like in Israel. Not only does Matthew report this — a weighty admonition even for the believers of Israel — but also Luke, for the encouragement of the Gentiles. This common point was most worthy of record, and attached to the new creation, not to the old. How beautiful the scene is in both gospels’ how much is that beauty increased when we more closely inspect the wisdom and grace of God shown out in Matthew’s presentation of Gentile blessing and Jewish warning for the Israelites; and withal, in Luke’s presentation of respect for the Jews, and the absence here of all notice of Jewish excision, which might so easily be perverted to Gentile self-complacency! The next scene (verses 11-17) is peculiar to Luke. The Lord not only heals, but with a grace and majesty altogether proper to Himself, brings in life for the dead, yet with remarkable consideration for human woe and affection. Not only did He, in His own quickening power, cause the dead to live, but He sees in him, whom they were even then carrying out to burial, the only son of his widowed mother; and so He stays the bier, bids the deceased to arise, and delivers him to his mother. No sketch can be conceived more consonant with the spirit and aim of our gospel. Then we have the disciples of John introduced, for the special purpose of noting the great crisis that was at hand, if not come. So severe was the shock to antecedent feeling and expectation, that even the very forerunner of the Messiah was himself shaken and offended, it would seem, because the Messiah did not use His power on behalf of Himself and His own followers — did not protect every godly soul in the land — did not shed around light and liberty for Israel far and wide. Yet who could gainsay the character of what was being done? A Gentile had confessed the supremacy of Jesus over all things: disease must obey Him absent or present! If not the working of God’s own gracious power, what could it be? After all, John the Baptist was a man; and what is he to be accounted of?

What a lesson, and how much needed at all times. The Lord Jesus not only answers with His wonted dignity, but at the same time with the grace that could not but yearn over the questioning and stumbled mind of His forerunner — no doubt meeting, too, the unbelief of John’s followers; for there need be little doubt, that if there was weakness in John, there was far more in his disciples. Thereupon our Lord introduces His own moral judgment of the whole generation. At the close of this is the most remarkable exemplification of divine wisdom conferred by grace where one might least look for it, in contrast with the perverse folly of those who thought themselves wise. “But wisdom is justified of all her children,” no matter who or what they may have been, as surely as it will be justified in the condemnation of all who have rejected the counsel of God against themselves. Indeed, the evil side as well as the good are almost equally salient at the house of Simon the Pharisee; and the Holy Ghost led Luke to furnish here the most striking possible commentary on the folly of self-righteousness, and the wisdom of faith. He adduces exactly a case in point. The worth of man’s wisdom appears in the Pharisee, as the true wisdom of God, which comes down from above, appears where His own grace alone created it; for what depositary seemed more remote than a woman of ruined and depraved character? yea, a sinner whose very name God withholds? On the other hand, this silence, to my mind, is an evidence of His wonderful grace.

If no worthy end could be reached by publishing the name of her who was but too notorious in that city of old, it was no less worthy of God that He should make manifest in her the riches of His grace. Again, another thing: not only is grace best proved where there is most need of it, but its transforming power appears to the greatest advantage in the grossest and most hopeless cases. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.” Such is the operation of grace, a new creating, no mere change or bettering of the old man according to Christ, but a real life with a new character altogether. See it in this woman, who was the object of grace. It was to the house of the Pharisee who had invited Jesus that this woman repaired — attracted by the Saviour’s grace, and truly penitent, full of love to His person, but not yet with the knowledge of her sins forgiven; for this was what she needed, and what He meant her to have and know. It is not the exhibition of a soul starting upon the knowledge of forgiveness, but the ways of grace leading one into it. What drew her heart was not the acceptance of the gospel message, nor the knowledge of the believer’s privilege That was what Christ was about to give; but what won her, and drew her so powerfully even to that Pharisee’s house, was something deeper than any acquaintance with conferred blessings: it was the grace of God in Christ Himself. She felt instinctively that in Him was not more truly all that purity and love of God Himself, than the mercy she needed for herself. The predominant feeling in her soul, what riveted her was, that, spite of the sense she had of her sins, she was sure she might cast herself on that boundless grace she saw in the Lord Jesus. Hence she could not stay away from the house where He was, though she well knew she was the last person in the town the master of it would welcome there. What excuse could she make? Nay, that sort of thing was over now; she was in the truth.

What business, then, had she in Simon’s house? Yes, her business was with Jesus, the Lord of glory for eternity, albeit there; and so complete was the mastery of His grace over her soul, that nothing could keep her back. Without asking for Simon’s leave, without a Peter or a John to introduce her, she goes where Jesus was, taking with her an alabaster box of ointment, “and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.” This drew out the religious reasoning, of Simon’s heart, which, like all other reasoning of the natural mind on divine things, is only infidelity. “He spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet.” How hollow the fair-looking Pharisee was! He had asked the Lord there; but what was the value of the Lord in Simon’s eyes? “This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner.” Indeed, she was a sinner. This was not wrong but that. The root of the worst wrong is just that depreciation of Jesus. Simon within himself doubted that He was even a prophet. Oh, how little thought he that it was God Himself in the person of that lowly man, the Son of the Highest!

Herein was the starting-point of this most fatal error. Jesus, however, proves that He was a prophet, yea, the God of the prophets; and reading the thoughts of his heart, He answers his unuttered question by the parable of the two debtors. I will not dwell now on that which is familiar to all. Suffice it to say, that this is a scene peculiar to our gospel. Might I not ask, where possibly could it be found harmoniously except here? How admirable the choice of the Holy Ghost, thus shown in displaying Jesus according, to all we have seen from the beginning of this gospel! The Lord here pronounces her sins to be forgiven; but it is well to observe, that this was at the close of the interview, and not the occasion of it. There is no ground to suppose that she knew that her sins were forgiven before.

On the contrary, the point of the story appears to me lost where this is assumed. What confidence His grace gives the one that goes straight to Himself! He speaks authoritatively, and warrants forgiveness. Till Jesus said so, it would have been presumption for any soul at this time to have acted upon the certainty that his sins were forgiven. Such seems to me the express object of this history — a poor sinner truly repenting, and attracted by His grace, which draws her to Himself, and hears from Him His own direct word, “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” Her sins, which were many, were forgiven. There was no hiding, therefore, the extent of her need; for she loved much.

Not that I would explain this away. Her loving much was true before, as well as after, she heard the forgiveness. There was real love in her heart already. She was transported by the divine grace in His person, which inspired her by the Spirit’s teaching with love through His love; but the effect of knowing from His own lips that her sins were forgiven must have been to increase that love. The Lord is here before us as One that thoroughly sounded the evil heart of unbelief, that appreciated, as truly as He had effected, the work of grace in the believer’s heart, and speaks out before all the answer of peace with which He entitled such an one to depart. In the last chapter (Luke 8:1-56) on which I am to speak tonight, the Lord is seen not only going forth now to preach, but with a number of men and women in His train, children of wisdom surely, the poor but real witnesses of His own rich grace, and thus devoted to Him here below. “And the twelve were with him. And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance.” Here, too, is it not a wonderfully characteristic picture of our Lord Jesus, and so only found in Luke? Entirely above the evil of men, He could and did walk in the perfect calm of His Father’s presence, but withal according to the activity, in this world, of God’s grace. Hence, He is here presented in our gospel as speaking of the sower, even as He was then scattering the seed of “the word of God;” for so it is called here. In the gospel of Matthew, where the same parable appears as introducing the kingdom of heaven, it is called “the word of the kingdom.” Here, when the parable is explained, the seed is “the word of God.” Thus it is not a question of the kingdom in Luke; in Matthew it is. Nothing can be more simple than the reason of the difference. Remark that the Spirit of God in recording does not limit Himself to the bare words that Jesus spoke. This I hold to be a matter of no little importance in forming a sound judgment of the Scriptures. The notion to which orthodox men sometimes shut themselves up, in zeal for plenary inspiration, is, to my mind, altogether mechanical: they think that inspiration necessarily and only gives the exact words that Christ uttered.

There seems to me not the slightest necessity for this. Assuredly the Holy Spirit gives the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The differences are owing to no infirmity, but to His design; and what He has given us is incomparably better than a bare report by so many hands, all meaning to give the same words and facts. Take the chapter before us to illustrate what I mean. Matthew and Luke alike give us the same parable of the sower; but Matthew calls it “the word of the kingdom;” while Luke calls it “the word of God.” The Lord Jesus may have employed both in His discourse at this time. I am not contending that He did not; but what I affirm is, that, whether He did or did not employ both, the Spirit of God did not give us to have both in the same gospel, but acts with divine sovereignty. He does not lower the evangelists into mere literal reporters, such as may be found by dint of skill among men. No doubt their object is to get the precise words which a man utters, because there is no such power or person to effect the will of God in the world.

But the Spirit of God can act with more freedom, and can drive this part of the utterance to one evangelist, and that part to another. Hence, then, the mere mechanical system can never explain inspiration.

It finds itself entirely baffled by the fact that the same words are not given in all the gospels. Take Matthew, as we have just seen, sating, “Blessed are the poor,” and Luke, saying, “Blessed are ye poor.” This is at once an embarrassing difficulty for the mechanical scheme of inspiration; it is none at all for those who hold to the Holy Ghost’s supremacy in employing different men as the vessels of its various objects. There is no attempt in any of the gospels to furnish a reproduction of all the words and works of the Lord Jesus. I have no doubt, therefore, that although in each gospel we have nothing but the truth, we have not all the facts in any Gospel, or in all of them. Hence, the richest fulness results from the method of the Spirit. Having the absolute command of all truth, He just gives the needed word in the right place, and by the due person, so as the better to display the Lord’s glory. After this parable we have another, like Matthew’s, but not relating to the kingdom, because this is not the point here; for dispensation is not the topic before us as in Matthew. Indeed, this parable is one not found in Matthew at all. What Matthew gives is complete for the purposes of his gospel. But in Luke it was of great importance to give this parable; for when a man has been laid hold of by the word of God, the next thing is testimony. The disciples, not the nation, were given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Enlightened themselves, the next thing was to give light to others. “No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter may see the light.

For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither anything hid, that shall not be known and come abroad. Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have.” Thus responsibility in the use of light is enforced. What follows here is the slight of natural ties in divine things, the approval of nothing but a relationship founded on the word of God heard and done. Flesh is valueless; it profits nothing. So when people said unto Him, “Thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to see thee; he answered and said unto them, My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God, and do it.” Still it is the word of God. It is not as Matthew puts it after the formal giving up the nation to apostacy and a new relationship brought in; here it is simply God’s approval of those who keep and value His word. The place that the word of God has morally meets the mind of Christ. But Christ does not exempt His witnesses from troubles here below. The next is the scene on the lake, and the disciples manifesting their unbelief and the Lord His grace and power. Passing, to the other side me see Legion who spite of this awful evil has a deep divine work wrought in his soul. It is not so much a question of making him a servant of God. That we have in Mark and much detailed. Here we have Him rather as a man of God; first the object of the delivering power and favour of the Lord; then, delighting in Him who thus made God known to him.

No wonder when the devils were cast out the man besought that he might be with Jesus. It was a feeling natural so to speak, to grace and to the new relationship with God into which he had entered. “But Jesus sent him away saying, Return to thine own house, and show how great things God hath done unto thee. And he went his way and published throughout the whole city how great thing’s Jesus had done unto him.” The account of Jairus’s appeal for his daughter follows. While the Lord is on His way to heal the daughter of Israel, who meanwhile dies He is interrupted by the touch of faith; for whoever went to Him found healing. The Lord however while He perfectly meets the case of any needy soul at the present time does not fail in the long run to accomplish the purposes of God for the revival of Israel. He will restore Israel; for in God’s mind they are not dead but sleep.