Microstudy: Study in Luke 4 and Isaiah 61
During His short ministry our Lord Jesus Christ had a custom of
going into the synagogue on the Sabbath day to read.
Luke 4:16 And he came to
Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into
the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. (17) And there was delivered unto him the book of
the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where
it was written,…...
Esaias is Greek for the Hebrew Isaiah. In other words Jesus was handed a scroll of the book of Isaiah to
read to the congregation. Jesus then
rolled the scroll to a certain place and read from Isaiah. The Scripture above continues with Luke 4:18.
Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the
Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor;
he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the
captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are
bruised, (19) To preach the acceptable
year of the Lord.
Please note there is a period after verse 19 above. Now let's compare this with the original
which is Isaiah 61.
Isaiah 61:1 The spirit of
the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good
tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to
proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that
are bound; (2) To proclaim the acceptable year of the
LORD,…….…
Here is where the period was in Luke. But in Isaiah there is more.
Let's continue reading Isaiah.
..…..and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that
mourn; (3) To appoint unto them that
mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning,
the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called
trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.
We might reasonably ask "Why did our Lord stop reading from
Isaiah before reading the AND followed by the rest of the verse? We will find the answer to this as we
continue reading from Luke.
Luke 4:20 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. (21) And he began to say
unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
When we go back to Isaiah and read what follows the point where our
Lord stopped reading we can easily see why He stopped. He said " this day is this scripture
fulfilled in your ears." Yes, the spirit of the Lord was upon
Him. Truly He was anointed to preach
the gospel to the poor; He was sent to
heal the brokenhearted giving them hope of salvation, which they had never had
before. Immediately following His death
on the cross He would preach deliverance to the captives which is to say those
who had died prior to His own death.
He did restore sight to the blind and He set at liberty those that are
bruised meaning personal agonies such as divorce, death, etc. And
to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord which is to say preach the
Gospel, the glad tidings, prophesy His return and His Millennial reign.
Yes, He did all these things at His first advent.
BUT, the day of vengeance was still future. He could not proclaim it as having been
fulfilled at that time. Neither could
He proclaim that ALL who mourn were comforted.
That certainly was not the case at that time. These things were still
future and would take place at His second coming. This is why He stopped short of finishing the passage in
Isaiah. He was differentiating between
what He would accomplish then and His later works.
We should follow our Lord's example in our Bible study. He illustrated how we need to place various
Scriptures or even parts of Scripture into categories. To do this we need a minimum of four
folders. One for Scriptures before our
Lord's first advent. Another for the
period from His first advent until His Millennial reign begins. Another for the entire Millennium. And finally one for eternity which we refer
to as the eighth day. We invite you to
continue with this study.
Cha 3/30/2000