Harmony of the gospels

In verse 18 the phrase “Anointed me” is the aorist active indicative of the verb “Chrio” from which Christ [Greek Christos] is derived, the Anointed One.

Isaiah is picturing the Jubilee year and the release of captives and the return from the Babylonian exile with the hope of the Messiah through it all. Jesus here applies this Messianic language to himself. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me” as was shown at the baptism where he was also “anointed” for his mission by the Father’s voice.
In verse 19 “the acceptable year of the Lord” does not mean that his ministry is to be only one year in length as Clement of Alexandria and Origen argued. What he is saying is that the Messianic age has come.

On the first day of the year of Jubilee the priests with sound of trumpet proclaimed the blessings of that year. The Messiah on earth justly pictures Christ’s mission and message.

It was normal for a chapter of the prophets to be read so rolling up the scroll after only a small portion of the reading was most unusual. As a result all eyes were fastened on him. The imperfect tense shows that they in the synagogue constantly were gazing fixedly upon him.

The passage he read was Isaiah 61:1, 2a “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”
However He did no go on to complete verse 2 “and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;” as the day of vengeance deals with the judgement at the Second Advent not His ministry at His First Advent which are covered by the first verse and a half of the chapter.

Paul uses the verb “Atenizo” of the steady eager gaze of the people at Moses when he came down from the mountain when he had been communing with God. There was something in the look of Jesus here that held the people spellbound for the moment, apart from the great reputation with which he came to them. In small measure every effective speaker knows what it is to meet the eager expectations of an audience.

In verse 21 He began speaking. The moment of hushed expectancy was passed. These may or may not be the first words uttered here by Jesus. Often the first sentence is the crucial one in winning an audience. Certainly this is an arresting opening sentence.

He said to this group “Today this scripture stands fulfilled in your ears.” It is in the passive voice which means that the Scriptures have received fulfilment today. It was a most amazing statement and the people of Nazareth were quick to see the Messianic claim involved.

Jesus could only mean that the real year of Jubilee had come, that the Messianic prophecy of Isaiah had come true today, and that in him they saw the Messiah of prophecy. And it is no startling Messiah whom Jesus here sets forth, but the one who forgives sin and binds up the broken-hearted for the shortened passage deals with His first advent only. To the group attending the Synagogue that Sabbath the words seemed too good to be true and to be spoken here at Nazareth by one of their own townsmen!
22 And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son? 23 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.
They all began to bear witness that the statements recorded in Luke 4:14 “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about” were not exaggerations as they had expected, but had foundation in fact if this was a fair sample of his teaching. They began to wonder whether this was true as He proceeded with His message.

The words of grace here means that the words that came out of the mouth of Jesus in a steady stream as shown by the present tense were very gracious.

This wonder gave way to bewilderment as they began to explain to themselves the situation. Is not this Joseph’s son they said?. Jesus appeared in Nazareth as the son of Joseph as Luke presents him. Luke does not stop here to correct this misconception because the truth has been already presented in detail in Luke 1:28-38, 2:49.

This popular conception of Jesus as the son of Joseph appears also in John 1:45. The puzzle of the people was due to their previous knowledge of Jesus as the carpenter, the carpenter’s son.

For Him now to appear as the Messiah in Nazareth where he had lived and laboured as the carpenter was a concept impossible for the hearers to accept after thinking about it for a while. The mood of wonder and praise now quickly turned to doubt and hostility, a rapid and radical transformation of emotion in the audience.

In verse 23 the word parable has a special application to a statement which involves a comparison. The word physician is the point of comparison. Luke the physician alone gives this saying of Jesus.

The proverb means that the physician was expected to take his own medicine and to heal himself. This statement in various forms appears not only among the Jews, but in Euripides and Aeschylus among the Greeks, and in Cicero’s Letters and the Chinese used to demand it of their physicians.

The point of the parable seems to be that the people were expecting him to make good his claim to being the Messiah by doing here in Nazareth what they had heard of his doing in Capernaum and elsewhere. “Establish your claims by direct evidence” they are saying. This same appeal was addressed to Christ on the Cross. There is a tone of sarcasm towards Jesus in both cases.

The phrase “Do also here” is the group telling Jesus to do it here in your own country and town and do it now. Jesus applies the proverb to himself as an interpretation of their real attitude towards himself.
24. And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. 25 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; 26 But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. 27 And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.
Jesus in his refuting to the rejection in Nazareth refers to two incidents in the Old Testament one from the time of Elijah and the second during the ministry of his successor Elisha.
In both cases Gentiles were involved. There were many Jewish widows in the land during the three and a half years of drought which featured prominently in Elijah’s ministry but he was sent a Gentile widow Zarephath. There were also many Jewish lepers but it was a Gentile leper Naaman who was healed.
These illustrations cause great dissent among the assembly and they are ready to kill Him.
In relation to the famine it is noted in 1 Kings 18:1 that the rain is said to have come in the third year. However as shortages are not overcome overnight the famine lasted still longer as stated above.
Zarephath has been identified as the village of Surafend on the coast road between Tyre and Sidon. The widow woman, a Gentile, was in the land of Sidon or Phoenicia, where Jesus himself will go later.
In verse 27 we have the imperfect tense of eimi which means there continued to be many lepers. This is followed by the passive voice of katharizo meaning to receive cleansing. This verb is where we get the word catharsis from, with lepros obviously being the root of leper.
28 And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, 29 And 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. 30 But he passing through the midst of them went his way,
The people of Nazareth at once caught on and saw the point of these two Old Testament illustrations of how God in two cases blessed the Gentiles instead of the Jewish people. The implication was evident. Nazareth was no better than Capernaum if as good. He was under no special obligation to do unusual things in Nazareth because he had been reared there. Town pride was insulted and it at once exploded in a burst of rage.

They rose up and cast him forth which was the equivalent of forming a lynching mob. The headed towards a brow of a hill which is on the south west side of Nazareth with a view of hurling him over the overhanging cliff to His death. Murder was in the hearts of the people. By pushing him over they hoped to escape technical guilt. At the site of the attempted murder is built a church called the Church of Mary of the Fright

a) The Law and Prophets Group:- prepares for the coming of the Lord

i) At the Exodus through to the giving of the Law, miracles were performed by Moses, Aaron and later by Joshua.

ii) At the period when the great prophets Elijah and Elisha were teaching many miracles were performed.

b) The Lord and Church Group:- bears witness to His first coming

i) The miracles of the Lord.

ii) The miracles performed by the apostles.

c) The Future Miracle Group:- attest to His second coming

i) Beginning with the activities of the two witnesses of the Great Tribulation.

ii) The universal outburst of miracle activity at the establishment of the Millennial Kingdom, when the Lord rules over a restored earth.

a) To glorify the nature of God (John 2:11, 11:40).

b) To accredit certain men as spokesmen for God (Hebrews 2:3-4, Luke 7:18-23)

c) To provide evidence for belief in Jesus as Messiah (John 6:2, 14, 10:37-38, 20:30-31, 1 Corinthians 15:13-20)

d) To demonstrate the Lord's superiority over the forces of evil. (Matthew 9:27-34; Mark 5:1-20; Luke 4:31-37)

e) To demonstrate the uniqueness of the Lord Jesus Christ, God with us. (John 1:14)

a) The Sovereignty of God was illustrated in:-

i) the Lord's creative work of turning water into wine at Cana. (John 2:1-11)

ii) His power when stilling the storm on Galilee. (Mark 4:35-41; Matthew 8:18)

iii) the feeding of the 5000 and the 4000. (Mark 6:33-44; 8:1-9)

iv) walking on the water at Galilee. (Mark 6:47-52)

v) His arrest in Gethsemane. (John 18:6)

b) The Righteousness of God was illustrated in:-

the Lord's transfiguration before the disciples on the mountain, when they saw the Holiness of God in the Lord displayed. (Matthew 17:1-8; Mark 9:2-8; Luke 9:28-36)

c) The Justice of God was illustrated in:-

the cursing of the fig tree during the last week before the cross as a sign of His coming judgement upon unresponsive Israel. (Matthew 21:18-22; Mark 11:12-14, 20-26)

d) The Love of God was illustrated in:-

all the healing ministries as the Lord's compassion flowed into action, even to the exhaustion of His humanity. While thirty-six specific miracles of the Lord are recorded, many thousands of healing miracles are passed over in a few isolated verses. (eg. Matthew 9:35-36, 14:14, 15:30-31, 8:16-17 etc.)

e) The Eternal Life of God was illustrated in:-

the great miracle of the resurrection of Christ.

f) The Omniscience of God was illustrated in:-

i) his knowledge of where unseen shoals of fish were. (Matthew 4:18-22, Mark 1:16-20, John 21:1-14)

ii) where the fish was with just enough money in its mouth to pay the required tax. (Matthew 17:24-27)

iii) the knowledge about Nathaniel and the woman at the well at Sychar also shows his omniscience. (Jn 1:45-51;4:5-43)

g) The Omnipresence of God was illustrated in:-

His ability to appear in various places many kilometres apart demonstrating the truth of His promise to be with believers always. (Matthew 28:20)

h) The Omnipotence of God was illustrated in:-

the raising of people such as Lazarus from the dead.

i) The Immutability of God was illustrated in:-

the repetition of the miracle of the draught of fishes both before and after the resurrection showing that His character and power were unchanged.

j) The Veracity of God was illustrated in:-

the healing of the Centurion's servant and the Nobleman's son. The Lord said they were healed, and at that moment, many kilometres away, they were. (Matthew 8:5-13, Luke 7:1-10, John 4:46-54)

k) The Grace of God was illustrated in:-

the healing of Malchus' ear in the garden on the night of the Lord's arrest (Luke 22:50). It was a testimony to His Grace that as he faced the horror of the cross, our Lord could still stoop and heal one of His captors. It is significant that the last recorded miracle performed by the Lord before the cross benefited an enemy, one who had come to arrest him.
MIRACLES OF CHRIST
MIRACLES OF CHRIST: CATEGORIES
1. Healing Miracles of Command

a) Healing the sick from afar:-

i) Nobleman's son at Cana. (John 4:46-54)

ii) Centurion's servant. (Matthew 8:5-13)

b) Healing the sick in person:-

i) Man with the withered arm. (Matthew 12:9-13)

ii) Man by the pool of Bethesda. (John 5:1-15)

iii) The ten lepers. (Luke 17:11-19)

iv) Two blind men between the two Jerichos. (Luke 18:35-43)
2. Healing Miracles of Touch

a) Simple Touch:-

i) Peter's mother in law. (Matthew 8:14-15)

ii) A leper. (Matthew 8:2-4)

iii) Woman with a haemorrhage. (Matthew 9:20-22)

iv) Two blind men. (Matthew 20:30-34)

v) Crippled woman. (Luke 13:10-13)

vi) Dropsy case. (Luke 14:1-6)

vii) Malchus' ear. (Luke 22:49-51)

b) Other Activity in the Touching:-

i) Blind man at Bethsaida. (Mark 8:22-26)

ii) Man born blind. (John 9:1-41)

iii) Deaf and dumb man. (Matthew 15:29-31)
3. Resuscitation Miracles

a) By Command:-

i) Lazarus. (John 11:1-46)

b) Touch and Command:-

i) Widow of Nain's son. (Luke 7:11-17)

ii) Jairus' daughter. (Mark 5:21-43)

a) Command:-

i) Nobleman's son at Cana. (John 4:46-54)

ii) Centurion's servant. (Luke 7:1-10)

iii) Ten lepers. (Luke 17:11-19)

iv) Paralysed man. (Mark 2:1-12)

v) Man at pool of Bethesda. (John 5:1-15)

vi) Withered arm. (Matthew 12:9-13)

b) Touch:-

i) Two blind men. (Matthew 9:27-31)

ii) A leper. (Mark 1:40-45)

iii) Woman with a haemorrhage. (Luke 8:43-48)

i) Paralysed man. (Mark 2:1-12)

ii) Man by pool of Bethesda. (John 5:1-15)
6. Miracles associated with Parables or Teaching.

i) Withered arm and lost sheep. (Matthew 12:9-13)

ii) Man born blind and the good shepherd. (John 9, John 10:1-16)

iii) Casting out of the demon from the dumb man. (Luke 11:14)

iv) Unclean spirit who returns. (Luke 11:14 cf. Luke 11:21-28)

v) Cursing of the fig tree and the teaching on faith. (Mark 11:20-26)

i) Healing of the man at Bethesda. (John 5:1-15)

ii) Healing of the man with a withered arm. (Mark 3:1-6)

iii) Crippled woman healed. (Luke 13:10-21)

iv) Case of dropsy healed. (Luke 14:1-6)
CHRIST: FIRST AND SECOND ADVENTS
1. Old Testament saints had difficulty in distinguishing between the two advents of Christ. (1 Peter 1:10, 11)
2. Old Testament prophecy has Christ coming as a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. (Isaiah 53:7)
3. Old Testament prophecy has Christ coming as the conquering King and Lion of the tribe of Judah. (Isaiah 11:1-12)
4. Jesus commenced his ministry announcing the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. (Matthew 4:17) This connects the first and second advents.
5. Old Testament Prophecy showed that the Messiah would:-

a) be born of a virgin. (Isaiah 7:14)

b) be of the tribe of Judah. (Genesis 49:10)

c) be of the house of David. (Isaiah 11:1, Jeremiah 33:21)

d) die as a sacrifice. (Isaiah 53:1-12)

e) be crucified. (Psalm 22:1-21)

f) be resurrected from the dead. (Psalm 16:8-11)

g) return to earth at his second advent. (Zechariah 8:3)

h) be seated at the right hand of God. (Psalm 110:1)
6. It should be noted that the return of Christ for the Church (the Rapture) as given in (1 Thessalonians 4:14-18) was not revealed in the Old Testament - it is a mystery doctrine of the Church (Colossians 3:4-6)
7. The day of the Second Advent is characterised by supernatural darkness

a) When Christ returns every eye shall see him (Matthew 24:29-30) Christ is the light of the world and he will return to a world covered in darkness (symbolic of sin).

b) The darkness is similar to the darkness of the day of our Lord's crucifixion which hid the Lord Jesus Christ from man's sight whilst he was bearing our sins. (Mark 15:33)

c) The Second Advent delivers the Jewish believers besieged in Jerusalem by the King of the North. (Daniel 11, Zechariah 12:1-3, 14:1-4)

d) Other passages indicating that the day of the Second Advent is a day of total darkness on the earth. (Isaiah 13:9-10, Ezekiel 32:7-8, Joel 2:10-11, Joel 3:14-15, Amos 5:18, Zechariah 14:6, Matthew 24:29-30, Luke 21:25-27, Revelation 6:12-17)

8. Heralds of the Two Advents of Christ

a) First Advent

i) Human herald - John the Baptist (Matthew 3)

ii) Angelic heralds - Angels (Luke 2:1-15)

b) Second Advent

i) Human heralds - Moses, Elijah (Revelation 11)

ii) Angelic herald - The mighty angel (Revelation 10)
CHRIST: HYPOSTATIC UNION – GOD - MAN
1. Hypostasis means standing together under one essence, two things united under one with no loss or transfer to the other and no change to either. In the person of Jesus Christ the two natures, divine and human, were inseparably linked with no loss or transfer of properties or attributes, and no mixture or loss of separate identity the union was personal and eternal. The Lord Jesus Christ is still perfectly human and divine Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 9:6, John 1:1-14, Romans 1:2-5, Romans 9:5, Philippians 2:5-11, 1 Timothy 3:16, Hebrews 1:4
2. The incarnate person of the Lord Jesus Christ included undiminished deity. Jesus Christ is God, He remained co equal and co eternal with the Father while on earth. Christ is eternal because God is eternal life. His deity was never affected by His death, resurrection and session. As God Jesus Christ could not die. However as a baby in the cradle he was holding the universe together.
3. The Lord Jesus Christ was also true humanity; body, soul and spirit although due to the virgin birth he had no old sin nature 1 Peter 2:22
4. The two natures of Jesus Christ are united with no transfer of attributes. Each set of attributes corresponds to the respective natures. The divine attributes such as eternal life, all knowing, everywhere, refers to His divine nature, the human attributes correspond to His human nature. To remove any attribute from His deity would be to destroy deity.
5. No aspect of the divine nature was lacking, although certain attributes were not exercised in line with the Father's plan Matthew 4:1-10
6. The union of the two natures in the person of Christ must be considered personal, human to the human, divine to the divine. They are never mixed. The union was therefore personal and hypostatic; one essence with two natures.
7. Deity did not indwell humanity or possess it. The union was more than sympathy and harmony, it was unique combining the two natures eternally. He is the God – man
8. Christ had two natures in one person, therefore he could be supremely powerful yet weak at the same time.

a) Deity cannot be tempted, humanity can. Matthew 4:1-10

b) Deity cannot thirst, humanity can John 19:28.

c) Deity is omniscient , humanity learns Luke 2:40,52

a) To be our Saviour he had to be man as God cannot die. Hebrews 2:14, 15, Philippians 2:7,8

b) To be our mediator He had to be equal with both God and man Job 9:2, 32-33, 1 Timothy 2:5-6

c) To be our High Priest He must be a man. Hebrews 7:4, 5 14-28; 10:5, 10-14

d) To be a king he must be a man, a Jew in the line of David. Psalm 89:20-37, 2 Samuel 7:8-16
10. There are three categories of sayings or actions of the Lord:

a) From his deity alone John 8:58

b) From his humanity alone John 19:28

c) From his hypostatic union - John 11:25,26