Proclamation of Liberty
Devotions for Growing Christians
Proclamation of Liberty
Luke 4:18-19 - 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 downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.
Read Luke 4:14-30.
Bicentennial celebrations throughout 1976 called our attention to the principles on which this country was founded: political and religious freedom, with liberty and justice for all. Election Day reminds us that we still have considerable civil liberty and power of choice. We’re not living in a dictatorship or military regime!
But wait! Let's stop the flag waving and nostalgia and take a hard look at actual conditions in our country. Isn't it a stretch to say that there is liberty and justice for all? We must admit - a hard look at our country reveals much that we can’t "wave the flag" about.
The Lord Jesus Christ came into this world and proclaimed liberty. The liberty He proclaimed was not immediate political and religious freedom. It was not instant relief from financial burdens and other problems. The liberty that Jesus proclaimed was far more important - liberty for the individual souls of people. He proclaimed freedom from sin: freedom from the power and control of sin and freedom from the direct effects of sin, and freedom from the eternal consequences of sin. The liberty that Jesus proclaimed was not the same liberty that we sing in, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty."
Thus, the growing Christian is not exactly a flag-waver! Yes, we’re thankful to the Lord for all the political and religious freedom we have - and we've got a lot, compared to many of our brothers and sisters around the world. And even though short-comings and problems and evil exist throughout the government, we’re thankful for the liberty and justice that are still present in our land. But as true Christians who are members of the Body of Christ, we realize that our main concern is not to wave the flag. We are to reach out to others and proclaim the liberty that the Lord Jesus offers.
The Lord Jesus announced the liberty He had come to proclaim early in His three years of earthly ministry, in Luke 4. The scene was a synagogue in Nazareth, where Jesus spent His boyhood. The fact that Jesus regularly attended the synagogue (v16) should be a lesson to us. The Lord knew that there were many hypocrites in the synagogues who misused and misapplied and misunderstood the Word of God. And He certainly knew that the synagogues were not ideal. (In fact, synagogues weren't instituted by God in the Old Testament. They arose primarily during the 400 years between the Old Testament and the New Testament.) And the Lord Jesus realized that, before long, His proclamation of liberty would sweep away the synagogue system.
Yet in spite of all the hypocrisy and imperfections, the Lord regularly attended the synagogue. Why? Because the Word of God was read and revered there. Do you see a lot of imperfections in the church you're attending? Are you disillusioned with the hypocrisy of some of the people who attend there? Don't just quit! If the Word of God is read and proclaimed at your church, stick with it! Don’t get hung up with hypocrisies, problems and faults! Let’s all continue to do our part there, proclaiming the liberty of Jesus Christ.
In the synagogue services of Jesus’ days, after the preliminaries of prayer and a reading from the Law, any male who was of age could read and teach the Scriptures. On this occasion, Jesus stood up and read from the book of Isaiah that was handed to Him by the synagogue attendant. The Lord purposely unrolled the precious hand-written Hebrew scroll to the prophecy that when Messiah came, He would proclaim liberty.
How did the Lord know where to look for those words in the rather large and cumbersome scroll of Isaiah? Jesus had studied and learned the Scriptures as He was growing up in Nazareth. And it wasn't easy! He didn't have a pocket New Testament to read in study hall or before He went to bed at night. No! Before the printing press, hand-written copies of the Scriptures were hard to come by. The sacred Scriptures were primarily kept in the synagogues. In order to study, a person had to make a constant and determined effort to get to the local synagogue and literally burn the midnight oil. How often Jesus must have left the carpenter shop and gone straight to the synagogue to study the Scriptures until late at night. What a lesson for those of us who, almost reluctantly, spend a few minutes each day reading the Word of God. And we have the Bible readily available in our homes - at "arm's reach"!
The Lord read from Isaiah 61:1-2. Notice that the first person is used, and the whole object of Messiah's mission announced - to proclaim the liberty that only He can bring to mankind. It’s very significant that the Lord left out the last part of Isaiah 61:2 that says, "to proclaim the day of vengeance of our God." Why? He omitted that part because the day of judgment had not yet arrived! That day will come when Christ returns. Right now it is still the "favorable year of the Lord." The liberty from the shackles and oppression and blindness of sin which Christ offered (vs18-19) is still available. The good news that Jesus announced was authenticated by His physical miracles, such as the literal recovery of sight to the blind (v18). But the main emphasis of our Lord's announcement was that liberty from both the present control and the eternal consequences of sin was now available through Him.
Jesus finished reading the Scripture and then, according to the custom of teaching and preaching in the synagogue, He sat down to explain the passage He had read. Everyone there knew that this Scripture was speaking of the Messiah who was to come some day, and they were eagerly waiting to hear what Jesus would say about it (v20). Think of the drama of the moment when Jesus said, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing”! Never before had these words been spoken in Israel!
At first the people were impressed with the words of Jesus, but that was only because they didn’t catch the full implication of His claim. The people of Nazareth had known Jesus as the good and honest young man who worked in the carpenter trade with his father, Joseph. Now, after spending some time in Judea (v14), their gifted carpenter was emerging before their very eyes as a gifted speaker! How wonderful!
But the Lord Jesus knew the truth about them. They were ready to receive Him as a good carpenter and a good speaker, but only as Joseph's son (v22). Certainly not as God! How true this still is today. Many people accept Jesus as anything from a good teacher or a man of peace - or even “Superstar” - but not as God!
The Lord proceeded, step by step, to uncover the real hearts of the people (v23-27). He knew their attitude would soon change when they heard His full proclamation of liberty. They wanted to see His miraculous works, but not accept His mandatory words (vs23-24). The liberty that Jesus proclaimed would come only if there was repentance from pride, from unbelief, from sin.
The Lord drove home this point with two illustrations from the Old Testament. In the days of the prophets Elijah and Elisha, Israel had an unrepentant attitude. So God purposely withheld His acts of mercy from the Jews, and extended His blessing to individual non-Jews who believed in Him. The widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17) and Naaman the Syrian (2 Kings 5) were Gentiles who put their faith in the living God of Israel (vs25-27). In the same way, the unrepentant and unbelieving attitude of Israel in Jesus’ day resulted in the blessings of His proclamation of liberty being largely withheld from the Jewish nation, and instead going out to individuals of any nation who would repent and believe.
As the necessity for repentance and faith was made clear to the people, they reacted with anger (v28) - and thats the reaction today! When the liberty that Christ offers is shown to include the necessity of repentance from sin, and faith in the Lord Jesus as God, people get riled. No one gets mad when Jesus is described as a great man who did good things - but the reaction is very different when He is proclaimed as God, before whom we sinners must repent.
People don’t want to think of themselves as sinners, so they get angry when the good news is fully proclaimed, but Christians have a responsibility to present the full message of the gospel. We compromise the truth if we just say that Jesus wants to be "your Friend.” We stop short of the total proclamation of liberty if we don’t stress the necessity of repentance from sin and submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. When people hear this side of the proclamation of liberty, many of them angrily jump off the "Jesus band-wagon."
The synagogue service broke up irreverently. The people’s anger turned violent, and they tried to get rid of Jesus (v29). The peoples’ false religious front disappeared. Jesus had exposed their real heart of unbelief. But they were unable to do away with Jesus Christ. He simply walked away (v30).
Jesus was always within reach of those who wanted to receive Him, but out of reach of those who rejected Him. And that’s still true today, as people receive or reject the Lord Jesus and His proclamation of liberty.
- Dave Reid