Now in the fifteenth year of the government of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Ituraea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene,
Luke opens this chapter with a list of names and offices: an emperor, a governor, three tetrarchs (each ruling a slice of a divided land), and two high priests. Why does the Gospel date the start of John's ministry by a foreign throne?
Luke dates the scene by an emperor's reign. One writer reads that as a confession of Israel's true state.
Luke gives his dates by counting from the years of the Roman empire. Judea is only a province of that empire, and the Herods are in power. All this was a very humiliating and significant circumstance for Israel — impossible if the people had been faithful to God. But God does not hide the shame of His people. On the contrary, He makes it plain by this very fact: He gives it a record in His own eternal Word, the Word that lives and abides for ever.
Count the offices in the verse and you can measure the damage.
The very description of the time shows the condition of ruin in Israel — of the people under law. Even the appearance of a united kingdom in Israel is gone. Herod's kingdom is quartered, and the tetrarchies stamp the mark of weakness on it. One quarter, Judea itself, lies under a Roman governor. Two Sadducees, Annas and Caiaphas, share the high priesthood between them. Judah is losing its tribal rod, and Shiloh must appear, to gather the peoples.
The verse crowds rulers into a small land, and the priesthood shows the same crowding.
A false king of the Jews, Herod, has his little kingdom in Galilee, with his brother Philip over another portion, and still another ruler in Abilene. The world seems to have no shortage of rulers. The same excess appears in the office of the priesthood itself. Annas and Caiaphas divide between them honours that were theirs not so much by divine right as by Roman political management — though no doubt they were descendants of Aaron.
Everything in the verse suggests order. Government settled, religion staffed, the empire quiet. God's assessment of that calm was the opposite.
He shows us here how still and at rest the whole earth was sitting. The Gentile beast had everything in order, according to its mind (Zechariah 1:11). Tiberius the Roman was emperor, and his governors were ruling their provinces. Judea itself was a part of his strength and a part of his honour. The priests, too, were in their temple. Everything on the earth, both in religion and in government, was just as man would have it. But under the eye of God, all this was a wilderness.
Lysanias was once used as evidence against Luke's accuracy.
"Lysanias." People once questioned Luke's accuracy here. Schürer, working from inscriptions, has confirmed it. There had been another prince of the same name, who died sixty years before this.
Set the emperor beside the preacher, and see which one this passage is about.
This is a most impressive and precise introduction. It is all the more so because of what it shows. In heaven's estimation, John's ministry clearly mattered far more than all the offices held by emperors, tetrarchs and high priests.
Every place named in the verse is a seat of power. The word of God arrives at none of them.
In chapter 3 we have the ministry of God coming in by a prophet, as of old by Samuel. "The word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness." The Spirit has a purpose in mentioning the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, and the rest. All the earth seemed to be at rest under its pagan lord. The word of God found its fitting place in the wilderness. The law and the prophets were until John: and where should he be in such a state of things but the wilderness? Could he morally own it? God will not have His messenger in Jerusalem.
John himself matched that separation, though he had every right to stand in the temple.
Though he was of the priestly family, he did not go near the temple in Jerusalem, nor seek any authority from priestly dignitaries before preaching the truth of God... He was not interested in seeking crowds, or he would have begun in the city, but crowds came to him in the wilderness anyway. This was God's doing, not man's.
The list of rulers reads like a record of collapse. That is the moment God chooses.
No change in the world would interfere with the purposes of grace. Nor would the humbling of the Lord's people, the strange pairing of the priests, or the carving up of the land by the foreigner. Grace, on the contrary, loves to take up men and things at their worst, and shows what God is towards the needy.
- Dated — Luke counts the year from Rome's throne. It humbled Israel, and God wrote it into His own permanent record instead of hiding it.
- Divided — a quartered kingdom, a Roman governor over Judea, two men holding one priesthood. These are the marks of ruin, and the sign that Shiloh must come to gather the peoples.
- Deceptive — the empire's calm looked like order to man; to God the whole scene was a wilderness.
- Directed — the word skips emperor, governor and temple. It comes to one man outside the city, and heaven rated his ministry above every office named.
- Deliberate — grace picks this moment on purpose, loving to take up people and situations at their worst.
in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, [the] word of God came upon John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.