Nazareth and the good news: the anointed Son opens his ministry

Luke 4 comes at the start of Jesus' public ministry in the Gospel of Luke. For the author, date and audience, see the class on Luke 1 and 2: church tradition names Luke, the physician and companion of Paul; the Gospel is dated by various scholars from the early 60s to the 80s; and it is addressed to Theophilus, probably a Gentile of standing, so that he may know the certainty of what he has been taught. Luke is the first part of a two-volume work that continues in Acts, and the chapter looks ahead to its themes.

Immediately before this chapter Luke has told of Jesus' baptism, where a voice from heaven calls him the beloved Son (3:22), and of his genealogy, which traces his line through David and Abraham back to Adam, 'the son of God' (3:38). Luke 4 shows what that sonship looks like under pressure. The devil's refrain, 'If you are the Son of God', picks up the words of the baptism and the end of the genealogy together.

The synagogue at Nazareth is the setting of the central scene. In the first century, the synagogue was a gathering for prayer and for reading and exposition of Scripture on the Sabbath. Luke describes Jesus standing to read and sitting to teach, which fits the customary posture of a teacher. Scholars differ on whether a set cycle of readings existed in Jesus' day, and Luke does not say the passage was fixed for that day. The Isaiah scroll was handed to him, and the passage he finds speaks of an anointed messenger, a year of the Lord's favor and release for the captive, language that recalls the Jubilee of Leviticus 25, when debts were canceled and slaves went free every fiftieth year. Mark places the rejection at Nazareth later in his story (6:1-6). Luke places it first, and most scholars treat his placement as deliberate, making it the programmatic scene for the whole Gospel.

Luke 4 is narrative, and Jesus' use of Scripture is the key to it. In the temptations Jesus quotes only from Deuteronomy, and each quotation comes from the chapters in which Moses reminds Israel of its testing in the wilderness (Deuteronomy 6 and 8). The devil also quotes Scripture, from Psalm 91:11-12. A basic rule is that a verse must be read in the setting that gave it meaning. The devil takes the psalm's promise of protection and detaches it from trust in God, and Jesus replies with another text that governs how the first is to be used. Jesus' reading of the Old Testament shows that Scripture interprets Scripture.

The Nazareth sermon asks the reader to notice what is chosen and what is left out. Jesus reads Isaiah 61:1-2 and adds a line from Isaiah 58:6 about releasing the oppressed. He stops in the middle of Isaiah 61:2, after the year of the Lord's favor, and does not read the following words about a day of vengeance. Then he rolls up the scroll and announces that this Scripture is fulfilled that day. The first hearers would have heard an announcement about what God was doing now, and the omitted phrase would not have escaped those who knew the passage.

The chapter should also be read in light of Luke-Acts. The two examples that provoke the crowd, Elijah and Elisha, point ahead to a gospel that goes beyond Israel to the nations, and Acts will show that happening. Every scene in the chapter, from the wilderness to the cliff, belongs to a pattern of Spirit, Word and opposition that Luke carries through the whole work.

Verses 1–13

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, is led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days and eats nothing. The devil's three temptations in Luke's order are about bread, kingdoms and the temple.

• First, the devil tells him to command a stone to become bread. Jesus answers from Deuteronomy 8:3 that man does not live on bread alone. Israel in the wilderness was hungry and was taught to depend on God's word, and Jesus, hungry and in the same wilderness, makes that his rule.
• Second, the devil shows him all the kingdoms of the world and offers them, saying the authority has been given to him, if Jesus will worship him. Jesus answers with Deuteronomy 6:13: worship the Lord your God and serve him only. The devil offers a kingdom without a cross, a shortcut to the throne that Jesus would otherwise reach through suffering.
• Third, in Jerusalem on the pinnacle of the temple, the devil quotes Psalm 91 and asks him to throw himself down. Jesus answers with Deuteronomy 6:16: do not put the Lord your God to the test, a reference to Israel's testing of God at Massah. Luke ends the account with the devil leaving 'until an opportune time', a hint that the conflict will return, and it does in the passion (22:3, 53).

Verses 14–15

Jesus returns to Galilee 'in the power of the Spirit', and his reputation spreads as he teaches in the synagogues.

Verses 16–21

In Nazareth, his hometown, Jesus enters the synagogue on the Sabbath, as was his custom. He is handed the Isaiah scroll and finds the place that says the Spirit of the Lord is upon him because he has anointed him to preach 'good news to the poor', to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, and to proclaim the 'year of the Lord's favor'. In Isaiah the speaker is a prophet-servant anointed by the Spirit, and the language is of the Jubilee. He hands back the scroll, sits down, and all eyes are on him. His whole sermon, as Luke gives it, is one sentence: 'Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.' The 'today' is Luke's emphasis, as in 2:11 and 19:9.

Verses 22–30

The crowd's first reaction is admiration at his gracious words, followed by a question: 'Is this not Joseph's son?' Jesus reads their thoughts. They will ask him to do in Nazareth what he did in Capernaum, and he quotes the proverb 'Physician, heal yourself'. Then he says that no prophet is accepted in his hometown. He gives two examples: in the great famine in the days of Elijah, God sent the prophet not to a widow in Israel but to a widow in Zarephath, in the region of Sidon (1 Kings 17); and in Elisha's time many in Israel had leprosy, yet only Naaman the Syrian was cleansed (2 Kings 5). Both examples show God's grace reaching foreigners while Israel was passed over. The synagogue was filled with rage. They drove him out of town and led him to the edge of the hill to throw him down, but Jesus passed through the crowd and went on his way.

Verses 31–37

At Capernaum on the Sabbath, the people are astonished at his teaching because his word has authority. A man with the spirit of an unclean demon cries out, calling Jesus the Holy One of God. Jesus rebukes it, and it comes out without harming the man. The people ask what kind of word this is that commands unclean spirits.

Verses 38–41

In Simon's house Jesus rebukes a high fever, and Simon's mother-in-law gets up and serves. At sunset all the sick are brought and he heals each by laying his hands on them. Demons come out, crying that he is the Son of God, and he does not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ.

Verses 42–44

At daybreak Jesus goes to a solitary place. The crowds find him and try to keep him. He says he must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why he was sent. His healings are signs of that message and are not the whole of it.

Luke 4 teaches that the Spirit and the Word guide Jesus. He is full of the Spirit, led by the Spirit and anointed by the Spirit, and he meets the devil with Scripture. The chapter is a basic text for the Bible's teaching on temptation: Jesus is tested as Israel and as Adam were, and does not sin (Hebrews 4:15). It also teaches that the devil is a real adversary with limited power, who has influence in the world's kingdoms but cannot stand against the Son of God. Jesus' authority over unclean spirits shows that the kingdom has come in power.

The Nazareth sermon states the content of the gospel in Luke: good news to the poor, release for captives, sight for the blind. The Old Testament Jubilee (Leviticus 25) looked forward to a final release, and Luke's Greek word aphesis is the same word used of forgiveness of sins. The chapter also shows that God's grace is not restricted to Israel, as the examples of the widow of Zarephath and Naaman make plain, a theme that Paul develops in Romans 9 to 11. It shows too that the word of God divides: the same sermon draws praise and then violence. Luke 4:43 states that preaching the kingdom is the reason Jesus was sent, so that the healings serve and confirm the message.

Luke 4 presents Jesus as the Son of God who succeeds where Adam and Israel failed. The genealogy ends with Adam, the son of God, who fell in a garden. Israel, God's firstborn son (Exodus 4:22), was tested forty years in the wilderness and fell repeatedly. Jesus is tested forty days and answers each time with the words of Deuteronomy that Israel had been given. The temptations also test the manner of his kingship. The devil offers bread, kingdoms and display. Jesus refuses all three as ways of being the Messiah, and he will take the way of the cross.

The Nazareth scene is the clearest claim in the chapter. Jesus applies Isaiah 61 to himself: he is the one on whom the Spirit rests, the anointed one, and 'Christ' means just that. His ministry is the year of the Lord's favor, the Jubilee that the Old Testament had pointed to. He says it in the first person, and he does so at the opening of his public ministry. The people hear the claim, and some of them respond with violence. In that rejection Luke places the first sign of the path that ends at Golgotha, since the town that tries to push him over a cliff foreshadows the city that will hand him over to be killed.

The evening healings and the exorcisms show the Servant of Isaiah at work, bearing sickness (compare Isaiah 53:4 and Matthew 8:17), and the demons name him correctly even though he refuses their testimony. Jesus is the one who knows the Father's purpose, and he leaves the crowds to fulfil it.