Commentary - Luke 4:16-30

Bird's-eye view

Here in His hometown synagogue, the Lord Jesus Christ inaugurates His public ministry by reading from the prophet Isaiah. This is not just a reading, but a declaration. He is the fulfillment of this long awaited promise. The passage He selects is a Messianic trumpet blast, a proclamation of the great Jubilee. He has come to bring good news to the poor, release to captives, sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed. This is the favorable year of the Lord, the great cancellation of debts, the cosmic reset button.

The initial reaction is one of hometown wonder, but it quickly sours into murderous rage. The offense comes when Jesus makes it clear that this grace is not a domestic product, available only to the sons of Abraham. He points to the sovereign grace of God in the Old Testament, which flowed out to a Sidonian widow and a Syrian leper, bypassing many in Israel. This is the scandal of particularity, the doctrine of election in shoe leather. The good news is for the poor, but not all the poor. It is for the captives, but only those He chooses to release. Their rage reveals their hearts. They wanted a hometown messiah who would confirm their prejudices and bless their tribalism. What they got was the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, whose mercy is not constrained by bloodlines or geography. And so they try to kill Him, but His hour had not yet come. He simply passes through their midst, a picture of His serene authority over against their impotent fury.

Outline

Context In Luke

This event in Nazareth is placed strategically by Luke at the beginning of Jesus' Galilean ministry. It serves as a programmatic statement for everything that is to follow. Having been tempted in the wilderness and having returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee (Luke 4:14), this is His inaugural address. The themes introduced here, the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, the nature of the gospel as good news for the outcast, the offense of God's sovereign grace, and the rejection of the Messiah by His own people, will all be recurring motifs throughout Luke's Gospel and into the book of Acts.

This scene is a microcosm of Jesus' entire ministry. He comes to His own, and His own receive Him not. He offers a kingdom of grace, and they respond with murderous intent. The cross is already foreshadowed here on this cliffside in Nazareth. The grace that extends to the Gentiles, which becomes a central theme in Luke-Acts, is introduced here not as a backup plan, but as the plan from the beginning, rooted in the Old Testament Scriptures themselves.

Key Issues

The Proclamation in the Synagogue

16 And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read.

Jesus returns to His boyhood home. There is a deep pathos in this. He is among people who watched Him grow up, who knew Him as the carpenter's son. His attendance at the synagogue on the Sabbath was His regular practice, His custom. This tells us that Jesus was a faithful Jew, living under the law in order to redeem those under the law. He did not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. He stands up to read, taking the assigned role for that day. Everything is proceeding according to ordinary custom, but the extraordinary is about to break in.

17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the scroll and found the place where it was written,

Whether this was the appointed reading for the day or whether He deliberately chose it, the text is sovereignly appropriate. He "found the place." This was not a fumbling search. This was a divine appointment. The scroll of Isaiah, filled with prophecies of the coming Messiah, is placed into the hands of the Messiah Himself. The Word made flesh is about to read the written Word concerning Himself.

18 “THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED,

This is the Messiah's mission statement, straight from Isaiah 61. The "Spirit of the Lord" is upon Him, a reference to His anointing, which occurred visibly at His baptism. He is the Christ, the Anointed One. His mission is defined by grace. He preaches "gospel," good news, to the poor. This is not primarily about economics, but about spiritual poverty. The poor in spirit are those who know they are bankrupt before God and have nothing to offer. He proclaims release to captives, those enslaved to sin and death. He gives sight to the spiritually blind. He sets free the oppressed, those crushed under the weight of sin and the tyranny of the devil. This is a comprehensive salvation, a total liberation.

19 TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.”

This phrase refers to the Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25). Every fiftieth year in Israel, debts were canceled, slaves were freed, and land was returned to its original owners. It was a radical social and economic reset, a tangible picture of God's grace. Jesus is declaring that the ultimate Jubilee has arrived in His person. All spiritual debts are canceled at the cross. All who are enslaved to sin are set free. The inheritance lost by Adam is restored. It is the favorable year, the year of God's grace and acceptance.

20 And He closed the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him.

The drama in this moment is palpable. He closes the scroll, having stopped mid-sentence. The part of the verse in Isaiah that He omits is "and the day of vengeance of our God." He is proclaiming the age of grace, not yet the final judgment. He sits down, which was the posture of a rabbi about to teach. The entire congregation is hanging on His next words. The air is thick with anticipation.

21 And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

This is one of the most audacious statements ever made. He is not saying, "this will be fulfilled one day." He is not saying, "this is a nice ideal to strive for." He is saying that He, the man standing before them, is the embodiment and fulfillment of this grand prophecy. The waiting is over. The Messiah is here. The Jubilee has begun. The kingdom has come near. This is the central claim of the Christian faith.

The Turn to Rejection

22 And all were speaking well of Him and marveling at the gracious words which were coming forth from His lips, and they were saying, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”

The initial reaction is positive. They are impressed. The words are gracious, beautiful, and powerful. But their marveling is shallow, and it contains the seed of their unbelief. "Is this not Joseph's son?" This is the voice of familiarity breeding contempt. They have Him neatly categorized. He's the local boy. They can't see the divine through the human. They are stumbled by the incarnation. They want to be proud of their local celebrity, but they are not prepared to bow before their sovereign Lord.

23 And He said to them, “No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we heard took place at Capernaum, do also here in your hometown as well.’ ”

Jesus knows their hearts. He sees past their superficial praise to the demanding, unbelieving spirit beneath. They want a performance. They've heard reports of miracles in Capernaum, and now they want Him to put on a show for the home crowd. It's a "prove it to us" mentality. Their demand for a sign is a sign of their wickedness. They want the benefits of the Messiah without bowing to the Messiah Himself.

24 And He said, “Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown.

He applies another proverb to them, one that explains their rejection. Prophets are rejected precisely because they are familiar. The people cannot see past the ordinary to the extraordinary office. This is a profound statement about the nature of unbelief. Unbelief is not a lack of evidence; it is a refusal to submit to the evidence that is there. They knew Him too well, and so they did not know Him at all.

25 But I say to you in truth, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land,

Now Jesus turns the screw. He is about to show them that their rejection is not just a personal slight against Him, but is part of a long history of Israel's unbelief, and that God's grace has never been constrained by their national borders. He reminds them of the great famine in Elijah's day. There were many needy widows in Israel, the covenant people.

26 and yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.

Here is the offense. God, in His sovereign good pleasure, bypassed all the Israelite widows and sent His prophet and His miraculous provision to a Gentile, a woman from Sidon, the heartland of Baal worship. God's grace is not a domestic entitlement program. It is a free and sovereign gift that He bestows on whom He will.

27 And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”

He gives a second example, just to make sure they get the point. There were many lepers in Israel, suffering from a disease that made them ceremonially and socially unclean. Yet Elisha was sent to none of them. The one who received a miraculous cleansing was Naaman, the commander of the army of Syria, an enemy of Israel. Again, sovereign grace flows across borders to a Gentile, while many in Israel were passed over. Jesus is telling the synagogue in Nazareth that the grace He brings operates on the very same principle.

28 And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things,

The mood turns on a dime. The marveling is gone, replaced with white hot rage. Why? Because their pride has been assaulted. Their sense of religious and national privilege has been exposed as a sham. They believed God's grace was their birthright, and Jesus has just told them it is a free gift that God gives to whomever He pleases, including their enemies. The doctrine of election, when preached plainly, always provokes one of two responses: humble gratitude or furious rage. There is no middle ground.

29 and they stood up and drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the edge of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff.

Their theological disagreement immediately escalates to attempted murder. This is what unbelief does when it is cornered. It cannot refute the truth, so it tries to kill the truth-teller. They who had just marveled at His gracious words now want to throw Him off a cliff. This is a preview of the cross. The rejection of God's sovereign grace is what ultimately nailed Jesus to the tree.

30 But passing through their midst, He went on His way.

And here we see the serene sovereignty of Christ. A murderous mob has Him in their grasp, leading Him to a cliff's edge. And He simply walks through the middle of them. His hour had not yet come, and no man could lay a hand on Him until it did. Their rage was potent, but His authority was absolute. He is not a victim of their fury; He is the sovereign Lord moving according to His Father's timetable. He walks away from Nazareth, a town that has just sealed its own judgment, and continues on His mission to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord to all who have ears to hear.

Application

This passage confronts us with the raw, untamed nature of God's grace. We, like the people of Nazareth, are tempted to domesticate it, to make it manageable, predictable, and subject to our control. We want a God who blesses our tribe, our nation, our denomination, our way of doing things. We want a grace that confirms our prejudices.

But the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ is a sovereign grace. It is a wild grace. It flows to Syrian lepers and Sidonian widows. It saves the poor in spirit, not the proud in heart. The central question this passage forces upon us is this: how do we react when confronted with the sovereignty of God? Do we marvel for a moment and then, when the implications hit home, get angry? Or do we fall on our faces in humble adoration that such a grace would ever be extended to sinners like us?

The gospel is good news, but it is only good news to those who know they are poor, captive, blind, and oppressed. For those who believe they are rich, free, and clear-sighted, the gospel is an offense. Let us therefore pray that God would give us a true estimation of our own spiritual poverty, so that we might hear the words of Christ not as an insult to our pride, but as the sweetest news imaginable: "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."