Commentary - Luke 4:14-15

Bird's-eye view

Here we have the pivot point in Luke's Gospel. The private years are over. The forty days of brutal, hand-to-hand combat with the devil in the wilderness are concluded. Jesus, having proven Himself to be the faithful Son where Adam and Israel had failed, now launches His public ministry. But notice how He does it. He does not return in His own strength, or with a legion of angels, or with a clever marketing campaign. He returns "in the power of the Spirit." This is the essential fact that governs everything that follows. The ministry of Jesus Christ, from first to last, is a Spirit-empowered ministry. This brief summary statement from Luke sets the stage for the entire Galilean campaign. It is a ministry characterized by divine power, spreading renown, and authoritative teaching in the established places of worship, the synagogues. And the initial reception is overwhelmingly positive; He was "glorified by all." This initial popularity is significant because it will provide a stark contrast to the rejection that is to come, beginning in His own hometown of Nazareth.

In these two verses, Luke gives us the three key elements of Christ's early work: the source of His power (the Spirit), the scope of His influence (all the surrounding district), and the substance of His method (teaching in the synagogues). This is the overture to the symphony. The King has come, not with the pomp of earthly power, but with the dunamis of the Holy Spirit, and He begins His conquest not with a sword, but with the Word.

Outline

Context In Luke

These verses mark a major transition. Luke has meticulously established the identity of Jesus. We have had the angelic announcements, the miraculous birth, the testimony of the shepherds, Simeon, and Anna. We have seen His divine wisdom as a boy in the temple. John the Baptist has prepared the way. God the Father has declared His divine Sonship at the baptism, and the Holy Spirit has descended upon Him. Immediately following this, the Spirit led Him into the wilderness to be tested by the devil (Luke 4:1-13). Jesus emerges from that conflict victorious, having wielded the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. So, when He returns to Galilee in verse 14, He returns as a tested, anointed, and publicly declared King. What follows immediately is the famous and fateful sermon in His hometown synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30), where this initial glory will curdle into murderous rage. These two verses, therefore, serve as the calm before the storm, the bright dawn before the conflict of midday.

Key Issues

The Anointed Man of War

It is crucial that we see the connection between the temptation in the wilderness and the launch of the ministry. The Spirit did not just descend on Jesus at His baptism as a gentle dove for a photo opportunity. The Spirit descended to anoint Him for His task, and the first part of that task was war. The Spirit drove Him into the wilderness to engage the enemy. This was not a defensive action; it was an offensive strike. Jesus is the second Adam, going into the wilderness to succeed where the first Adam failed in the garden. He is the true Israel, remaining faithful for forty days where old Israel grumbled for forty years.

Therefore, when He returns "in the power of the Spirit," this is not the power of a self-help guru or a clever motivational speaker. This is the power of a victorious warrior. The Greek word is dunamis, from which we get our word dynamite. It is explosive, world-altering power. He has bound the strong man, and now He is entering the strong man's house to plunder his goods (Matt 12:29). His teaching, His miracles, His healings, they are all acts of conquest. They are demonstrations that the kingdom of God has arrived and is actively displacing the kingdom of darkness. The power of the Spirit is the power to reclaim what rightfully belongs to God.

Verse by Verse Commentary

14 And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit,

Luke is very deliberate here. Jesus left His baptism full of the Spirit. He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. And now He returns in the power of the Spirit. The entire operation is Trinitarian. The Father sends the Son, and the Son accomplishes His work in the power of the Spirit. This is a vital point for us to grasp about the incarnation. The Son, in His humanity, did not set aside His divine attributes, but He did voluntarily restrain from using them independently. He lived His life and performed His ministry as a man in perfect dependence on the Holy Spirit. This was not a divine shortcut. He models for us the life of faith, the life of Spirit-dependence. If the sinless Son of God conducted His ministry in the power of the Spirit, how much more must we, His sinful followers, depend utterly on that same power? Any ministry not done in the Spirit's power is just carnal machinery, destined to fail.

and news about Him spread through all the surrounding district.

Power has consequences. When dynamite goes off, people notice. When the power of God is genuinely at work, it cannot be hidden under a bushel. News, or a report, went out. The fame of Jesus was not the result of a public relations team. It was the organic, inevitable result of divine power being unleashed. When demons are cast out, when the sick are healed, and when a man teaches with an authority that no one has ever heard before, word gets around. This spreading fame is not the goal of the ministry, but it is a byproduct of a faithful one. It also sets the stage for the coming conflict. The more famous Jesus becomes, the more of a threat He is to the established, corrupt powers.

15 And He was teaching in their synagogues,

Jesus does not begin His work by starting a new, breakaway movement in the wilderness. His initial strategy is to go to the established centers of Jewish religious life: the synagogues. This was the place where the Scriptures were read and taught every Sabbath. By teaching there, Jesus was showing that He was not bringing a foreign religion. He was the fulfillment of the very Scriptures they were reading. He was coming to His own people, in their own places of worship, to announce that the promises made to Abraham, Moses, and David were now being fulfilled in Him. He was taking the fight directly into the heart of the religious establishment, challenging their traditions and interpretations with the true meaning of the Word. This was a direct claim to be the authoritative interpreter of the law and the prophets.

being glorified by all.

The initial reaction was spectacular. He was glorified, praised, and honored by everyone. Why? Because they had never seen anything like this. His teaching was not the dry, legalistic hair-splitting of the scribes. It was delivered with power and authority. He spoke as one who knew God personally, because He was God personally. The people were thirsty for reality, and in Jesus, they tasted it. This initial, universal acclaim is important for Luke to record. It shows that the subsequent rejection of Jesus was not because He was unappealing or incompetent. It was because as His message became clearer, it demanded a repentance that the people, and especially their leaders, were unwilling to give. The same crowds that glorified Him here would, in time, be manipulated to cry "Crucify Him!" Popular opinion is a fickle thing, and the servant of God must never measure his faithfulness by it.

Application

This short passage is packed with foundational truth for the Christian life. First, we see that all true Christian work is accomplished in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are constantly tempted to rely on our own cleverness, our programs, our budgets, or our personalities. But the lesson from our Lord is one of utter dependence. We must be people who are filled with the Spirit, led by the Spirit, and who work in the power of the Spirit. This means we must be people of prayer, constantly asking for that power, and people of faith, expecting God to provide it.

Second, we see the centrality of teaching the Word. Jesus' powerful ministry was a teaching ministry. He went to the place where the Word was and He expounded it with authority. The power of the Spirit does not operate in a vacuum; it operates through the truth of Scripture. A church that wants to see the power of God at work must be a church that is devoted to the faithful, verse-by-verse preaching and teaching of the Bible. When the Word is proclaimed in the power of the Spirit, lives are changed and news gets out.

Finally, we are warned about the allure of popular approval. It is a wonderful thing when people glorify God for the work He is doing. But we must never make that glory our goal. Jesus was glorified by all, and a short time later, He was rejected by all. Faithfulness to God and His Word will inevitably bring us into conflict with the world, and sometimes with the religious establishment. Our task is not to be popular, but to be faithful. We are to preach the Word in the power of the Spirit, and leave the results, and our reputation, in the hands of God.