Isaiah 61:1-2 and Luke 4:18-19
Isaiah 61:1-2
1 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor.
He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound.
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
And the day of vengeance of our God.
To comfort all who mourn,
Jesus quoted from this scripture showing that the Holy Spirit had anointed him, like the holy oil used to consecrate holy persons (the priests) and holy things (in the tabernacle and temple). Yeshua Ha’Meshiach in Hebrew becomes Jesus Christos in the Greek i.e. the anointed one and we Christians are the little ‘anointed ones’.
The anointing confers God’s power on the anointed one showing that the Messiah is chosen and empowered by God.
The Messiah would fulfil this scripture which is exactly what Jesus did in Luke 4:18-19
These verses describe the essence of Jesus’ mission or ministry.
The ministry of the Messiah is empowered to bring healing, freedom, and comfort to his people i.e. full redemption.
Back to Luke
Luke 4:20 Then He closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21 And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 So all bore witness to Him and marvelled at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth. And they said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”
v20-21 Jesus did not prolong his message but stuck closely to the point which was that those people privileged to hear these gracious words were actually simply hearing not only these prophetic words about the coming Messiah but were witnesses to the actual Messiah proclaiming them- in a sense Jesus is saying – the promised Messiah- I am he.
v22 the congregation were astonished by these (lit.) words of grace- but wanted to dismiss Jesus claims of being ‘the Messiah’ – who does he think he is – I kent [1] his faither Joseph. Will not the Messiah come from royalty and come on a big white horse to defeat the Romans?
In Part 3 we will consider the onward transmission of Jesus’ manifesto (mission) through the church.
[1] Scottish vernacular used to make a point.
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