Luca 1:78 Commento

The narrative which this evangelist gives us (or rather God by him) of the life of Christ begins earlier than either Matthew or Mark. We have reason to thank God for them all, as we have for all the gifts and graces of Christ's ministers, which in one make up what is wanting in the other, while all put together make a harmony. In this chapter we have, I. Luke's preface to his gospel, or his epistle dedicatory to his friend Theophilus (Luk 1:1-4). II. The prophecy and history of the conception of John Baptist, who was Christ's forerunner (v. 5-25). The annunciation of the virgin Mary, or the notice given to her that she should be the mother of the Messiah (Luk 1:26-38). IV. The interview between Mary the mother of Jesus and Elisabeth the mother of John, when they were both with child of those pregnant births, and the prophecies they both uttered upon that occasion (v. 39-56). V. The birth and circumcision of John Baptist, six months before the birth of Christ (Luk 1:57-66). VI. Zacharias's song of praise, in thankfulness for the birth of John, and in prospect of the birth of Jesus (Luk 1:67-79). VII. A short account of John Baptist's infancy (Luk 1:80). And these do more than give us an entertaining narrative; they will lead us into the understanding of the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh.

Luke 1:1 luk 1:1 luk 1:1 luk 1:1Forasmuch as many have taken in hand,.... From hence, to the end of Luk 1:4 is a preface of the evangelist to his Gospel, setting forth the reasons of his writing it; and which he wrote and sent to the excellent Theophilus, for the further confirmation of him in the faith of Christ. It seems that many had took in hand, or attempteo set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us; that is, they undertook to write and publish a very particular and exact narrative of the birth, life, actions, doctrines, miracles, sufferings, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ; things which Luke, and other Christians, had the fullest and strongest evidence, and were confidently assured of, and most firmly believed, even with a full assurance of faith. By these many, he cannot mean the authentic historians of evangelical facts, as Matthew and Mark; for they two cannot, with any propriety, be called many; and besides, it is not so very clear and certain a point, that they had, as yet, wrote their Gospels; nor would this evangelist suggest any deficiency, weakness, and inaccuracy in them, as he seems to do: nor does he intend such spurious writers as the authors of the Gospels according to the Nazarenes, Hebrews, and Egyptians; of Nicodemus, Thomas, Matthias, and of the twelve apostles; and still less, the Gospels of Cerinthus, Basilides, and other heretics; since these would not have passed without a censure from him, for the falsehood, fabulous, and trifling stuff in them, as well as for the wicked and heretical opinions propagated by them; and besides, these pieces were not extant when this Gospel was written: but he seems to design some honest and well meaning Christians, who undertook to write, and did write an account of the above things, which were firmly believed by all; and which they took from the apostles, and first ministers of the Gospel, from their sermons and discourses, and from conversation with them; and which they committed to writing, partly to help their own memories, and partly for the benefit of others; in which, no doubt, they acted an upright part, though attended with weakness: wherefore, the evangelist does not censure them as false, wicked, and heretical, nor approve of them as divine and perfect for though they honestly meant, and designed well, yet there might be many things collected by them, which were impertinent, and not proper to be transmitted to posterity; and what might be wrote with great inaccuracy and deficiency, and in a style the Holy Ghost thought improper things of this kind should be delivered in: and therefore the evangelist, moved and inspired by the Spirit of God, set about the following work, and under the same influence completed it. The phrase, , "to set forth in order a declaration", is as Dr. Lightfoot observes, out of the Talmud (h), agreeably to the Jewish way of speaking, "R. Chasdai said to one of the Rabbins, who was , "setting in order a declaration" before him. &c. or relating in order a story before him. (h) T. Bab. Succa, fol. 53. 1.

Through the tender mercy of our God,.... or "bowels of mercy", to which the forgiveness of sin is owing; the source and spring of pardon, is the free grace and abundant mercy of God; it takes its rise from thence, though it is channelled in the blood and sacrifice of Christ; and which no way derogates from, but rather heightens the riches of God's grace and mercy: for it was mercy that moved God to enter into a covenant with his Son, in which forgiveness of sin is promised; and it was mercy to set forth his Son, in his eternal purposes and decrees; and to send him forth in the fulness of time, to shed his blood for the remission of sins; it was the mercy of God to us, that provided a lamb for a burnt offering, and then accepted of the sacrifice and satisfaction of his Son, in our room and stead, and forgave all our sins, for his sake; and whatever the pardon of our sins cost God and Christ, it is all free grace and mercy to us: it is owing not to the absolute mercy of God, or to the mercy of God as an absolute God, but to the mercy of "our" God; our God in Christ, our covenant God and Father, whose bowels yearned towards us, and whose pity is that of a tender parent: whereby the day spring from on high hath visited us: the word here used, and is translated "the day spring", is the same which the Septuagint use, in Jer 23:5 where the Messiah is spoken of, under the name of the "branch": and undoubtedly the Messiah Jesus, is intended here, who is the man, that branch, that has grown up out of his place; not from below, but from above; and who is the phosphorus, or bringer of light, that bright and morning star, that sun of righteousness, who has light in himself, and communicates light to others; even light natural, spiritual, and eternal; and with his rays and beams of light, life, and love, refreshes, exhilarates, and warms, the hearts of his people: and by the "visit" he has made in our "horizon", is meant his assumption of human nature; which, like a friendly visit, proceeded from pure love to the children of God; and was a drawing near unto them, for it was a taking on him their nature, in which he represented their persons; and was done through much difficulty and great condescension, since he was in the form of God, and thought it no robbery to be equal with him; and his stay on earth in this nature, was but for a little while; so that on all accounts, it may be truly called a "visit": and which, as the remission of sin is wholly owing to the tender mercy of our God, who put him upon it, called him to it, sent him forth made of a woman, and in the likeness of sinful flesh, to obtain eternal redemption, in which mercy and truth met together: the end and design of this visit, are signified in the next verse; for the following words belong to the day spring from on high, and not to John the Prophet of the Highest.

This same God, after His great goodness, poured His compassion upon us, through which compassion "the Day-spring from on high has looked upon us, and appeared to those who sat in darkness and the shadow of death, and has guided our feet into the way of peace;" [Luke 1:78] as Zacharias also, recovering from the state of dumbness which he had suffered on account of unbelief, having been filled with a new spirit, did bless God in a new manner. For all things had entered upon a new phase, the Word arranging after a new manner the advent in the flesh, that He might win back to God that human nature (hominem) which had departed from God; and therefore men were taught to worship God after a new fashion, but not another god, because in truth there is but "one God, who justifies the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith." [Romans 3:30] But Zacharias prophesying, exclaimed, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He has visited and redeemed His people, and has raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David; as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world begun; salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; to perform the mercy [promised] to our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to our father Abraham, that He would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all our days." [Luke 1:68, etc.] Then he says to John: "And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Highest: for you shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways; to give knowledge of salvation to His people, for the remission of their sins." [Luke 1:76] For this is the knowledge of salvation which was wanting to them, that of the Son of God, which John made known, saying, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. This is He of whom I said, After me comes a man who was made before me; because He was prior to me: and of His fullness have all we received." [John 1:29, John 1:15-16] This, therefore, was the knowledge of salvation; but [it did not consist in] another God, nor another Father, nor Bythus, nor the Pleroma of thirty Æons, nor the Mother of the (lower) Ogdoad: but the knowledge of salvation was the knowledge of the Son of God, who is both called and actually is, salvation, and Saviour, and salutary.

Therefore, since it is manifest that a sabbath temporal was shown, and a sabbath eternal foretold; a circumcision carnal foretold, and a circumcision spiritual pre-indicated; a law temporal and a law eternal formally declared; sacrifices carnal and sacrifices spiritual foreshown; it follows that, after all these precepts had been given carnally, in time preceding, to the people Israel, there was to supervene a time whereat the precepts of the ancient Law and of the old ceremonies would cease, and the promise of the new law, and the recognition of spiritual sacrifices, and the promise of the New Testament, supervene; while the light from on high would beam upon us who were sitting in darkness, and were being detained in the shadow of death. And so there is incumbent on us a necessity binding us, since we have premised that a new law was predicted by the prophets, and that not such as had been already given to their fathers at the time when He led them forth from the land of Egypt, to show and prove, on the one hand, that that old Law has ceased, and on the other, that the promised new law is now in operation.

What greater destiny can befall man’s humility than that he should be intermingled with God, and by this intermingling should be deified, and that we should be so visited by the “dayspring from on high”? Further, that even the holy thing that should be born should be called the Son of the Most High and that he should be given “a name that is above every name”? And what else can this be but God? That every knee should bow to him that was made of no reputation for us, that mingled the form of God with the form of a servant, and that all the house of Israel should know that God has made him both Lord and Christ? For all this was done by the action of the begotten One, and by the good pleasure of him that begot him.

(Hom. xiv. in Matt.) Which mercy we find not indeed by our own seeking, but God from on high hath appeared to us, as it follows; Whereby (i. e. by His tender mercy) the dayspring from on high (that is, Christ) hath visited us, taking upon Him our flesh.

For those under the law and dwelling in Judea, John the Baptist was a lamp preceding Christ. God also spoke of him in a similar way: "I have prepared a lamp for my anointed." And the law also typified him in the lamp. In the first tabernacle it was necessary for the lamp to always remain lit. But the Jews, after being pleased with him for a short time, flocking to his baptism and admiring his mode of life, quickly made him sleep in death, doing their best to extinguish the ever-burning lamp. Therefore the Savior also spoke of him as "a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light."

Through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dawn from on high has visited us. And the prophet speaking of the Lord says: Behold, a man, his name is the Dawn (Zech. VI). He is rightly called the Dawn, who opening the rise of true light for us, made the children of night and darkness into children of light, as Blessed Zacharias consequently explains, saying:

When Zechariah says, “for his people,” he certainly does not mean that he found them his people upon his arrival but that he made them his by visiting and redeeming them. Do you want to hear about the condition in which he found this people and what he made of them? The end of this canticle clearly makes this evident by saying “the day shall dawn upon us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” He found us sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, weighed down by the ancient blindness of sins and ignorance, overcome by the deception and the errors of the ancient enemy. He is rightly called death and a lie, just as on the contrary our Lord is called truth and life. Our Lord brought us the true light of recognition of himself and, having taken away the darkness of errors, opened up for us a sure way to heaven. He guided our works so that we may be able to pursue the way of truth that he showed us and enter into the dwelling of everlasting peace, which he promised us.

Because God hath forgiven our sins not for our works' sake, but through His mercy, it is therefore fitly added, Through the tender mercy of our God.

And He forgave us our sins out of the tender mercy of His compassion, and not for our works; for we had done nothing good, yet He, who is called the Dawn, looked upon us from on high. For He is the Sun of righteousness and shone upon us who were in darkness, that is, in sin. Two evils held sway over human nature: ignorance of God, in which the pagans found themselves, and sin, which the Jews possessed, even though they knew God.

(Severus.) Abiding on high yet present upon the earth, suffering neither division nor limitation, which thing neither can our understanding embrace, nor any power of words express.

The preface, or St. Luke's private epistle to Theophilus, Luk 1:1-4. The conception and birth of John Baptist foretold by the angel Gabriel, Luk 1:5-17. Zacharias doubts, Luk 1:18. And the angel declares he shall be dumb, till the accomplishment of the prediction, Luk 1:19-25. Six months after the angel Gabriel appears to the virgin Mary, and predicts the miraculous conception and birth of Christ, Luk 1:26-38. Mary visits her cousin Elisabeth, Luk 1:39-45. Mary's song of exultation and praise, Luk 1:46-56. John the Baptist is born, Luk 1:57-66. The prophetic song of his father Zacharias, Luk 1:67-79. John is educated in the desert, Luk 1:80.

Luke 1:1 (Luk 1:1-4) set forth in order--more simply, to draw up a narrative.

Through the tender mercy of our God--the sole spring, necessarily, of all salvation for sinners. dayspring from on high--either Christ Himself, as the "Sun of righteousness" (Mal 4:2), arising on a dark world [BEZA, GROTIUS, CALVIN, DE WETTE, OLSHAUSEN, &c.], or the light which He sheds. The sense, of course, is one.