And he came to Nazareth, where he was brought up; and he entered, according to his custom, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read.
The Lord begins His public ministry in the small town where He grew up, in the synagogue He had attended for years. Everything about the day is ordinary — the town, the habit, the standing to read — yet it opens His first sermon.
He could have begun anywhere. He chose the town where people had watched Him grow up.
Here we notice His humble manner. And we need to learn to copy this humility. Meekness suits a man doing God's will, for when he is carrying out God's purpose he needs no show. It was enough for this blessed Man that He had come to speak the words of God, and so He stood up to read in the synagogue of Nazareth. So He opened the book not in Jerusalem but in the little town of Nazareth. People said nothing good could come out of it — a little village, obscure then and now.
This matters for anyone who finds their own neighbourhood the hardest place to speak of Christ.
There are unlimited opportunities in the ordinary circumstances of everyday life. The people in our street; our neighbours! Is this perhaps the most difficult of all gospel "fields"? Yet how richly rewarding, if we walk in fellowship with the "Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort," and are given to "know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary."
The phrase points backwards, past this one Sabbath, into the years before it.
There is another point here about the Lord's perfect Manhood. It says, "As His custom was." Now, that is delightful! He was not just an occasional visitor to the synagogue, He was there regularly.
The habit also served a purpose once His ministry began.
It was the practice of the Lord to teach and to preach the word in the synagogues where the Jews regularly gathered on the sabbath. Because the people gathered like this, He could set the truth before many at once. He used that opportunity again and again.
Notice who was holding the scroll.
It says He unrolled the Book and He found the place, and there is something particularly precious in that. The One who wrote the Scriptures found the place and, standing up, read it to those who were there. How we ought to approach the reading of the Word of God with reverence, as He did!
In the wilderness the Word was His weapon against the enemy.
The Son of God is Himself, as God, the Author of every line of Holy Scripture. He used the Word of God as His only weapon against the enemy. He also made it the basis and the material of His public ministry… His custom was to read the Scriptures publicly.
What He chose to read is surprising, given where it sits in Isaiah.
It was, in fact, the beginning of Isaiah 61. This is all the more remarkable, because the prophecy around it speaks of the total ruin of Israel. It speaks of the kingdom of God and His glory being brought in when judgment takes its course. Yet right in the middle of this, these verses describe our Lord in the fullness of grace. In everyday language, no prophet is as full of the gospel as Isaiah. And in Isaiah, perhaps no part of the whole prophecy breathes the spirit of the Gospel like these very verses.
Something in it struck the people listening.
He was God in the fullness of His Person. Yet He comes before us as the dependent Man, full of the Holy Spirit. He speaks and acts in the power of the Spirit, and overflows with grace for men. What struck the hearers at Nazareth was "the gracious words that came from His mouth." The synagogue had often heard the law of Moses read aloud, but no one had ever proclaimed grace there like this.
He closed the scroll in the middle of Isaiah's sentence.
He had ended His reading in the middle of a clause. Why? The prophecy said His mission was twofold: "to proclaim the acceptable year of Jehovah and the day of vengeance of our God." In the prophecy these two — the "acceptable year" and the gloomy "day" — are joined as one service of Christ. But the Lord, by His own lips, showed that the second half of the clause has not yet been fulfilled. In His coming to this world, a long stretch of time separates the "acceptable year" from the "day of vengeance."
- Home — He opened the book in the obscure town where He was raised, not in Jerusalem. Meekness needs no show, and our own street is the field.
- Habit — "As His custom was." He was no occasional visitor. The Sabbath gathering was His settled practice long before He preached there.
- Reverence — The Author of Scripture stood to read it and found the place Himself. The Word was His weapon in the wilderness and His material in public ministry.
- Grace — He chose the passage in Isaiah that breathes the gospel most, set inside a prophecy of ruin and judgment. The synagogue had often heard the law; it had never heard grace proclaimed like this.
- Pause — He stopped mid-sentence, before "the day of vengeance." He came to announce the acceptable year. The day of judgment waits for another time.
And [the] book of the prophet Esaias was given to him; and having unrolled the book he found the place where it was written,
It is a Sabbath morning in the town where Jesus grew up. He stands up in the synagogue, and someone hands Him the scroll of Isaiah. Everything hangs on what happens next: which passage He unrolls, what He claims about it, and where He stops reading.
It looks like ordinary synagogue routine. One writer stops at who was receiving the scroll.
What a moment! He who is God had become man, and He stoops to act as man among men… The Spirit of the Lord was not upon Him as God, but as man. The Spirit anointed Him to preach the gospel to the poor.
The scroll was in Hebrew, and the synagogue service followed a set order:
This illustrates the Lord's familiarity, gained by training, with the Hebrew Scriptures. Synagogue rolls were not in Aramaic. A Haftara, or section from the Prophets, was read on the Sabbath after the reading of the Law.
He was not handed an open book. He searched out the passage Himself:
It says He unrolled the Book and He found the place, and there is something particularly precious in that. The One who inspired the Scriptures found the place and, standing up, read it to those who were there. How we ought to approach the reading of the Word of God with reverence, as He did!
Was this the set reading for that Sabbath, or His own choice? One writer weighs it up:
It seems He did not read the portion set for that day in the Jewish reading list. He chose the passage Himself. That may have fixed attention on Him all the more. And now, with their attention gained, He opened His mouth and announced that the prophetic word was fulfilled in His own person.
The place He found was the opening of Isaiah 61. What surrounds it in the prophecy is ruin and judgment.
This is all the more remarkable because of where the prophecy sits. Its setting is the total ruin of Israel. It is also the bringing in of the kingdom of God and His glory, when judgment takes its course. Yet right in the middle of this, these verses describe our Lord in the fulness of grace. In ordinary language, no prophet is so full of the gospel as Isaiah. And perhaps no part of his whole prophecy breathes the spirit of the Gospel like these very verses… What He read describes His grace in ministry. It is not so much His Person as His devoted life, His work, His ways on earth.
Isaiah's sentence runs on past the point where Jesus closed the scroll. That break was deliberate. (Where the quote below says "the acceptable year of Jehovah," the ESV reads "the year of the LORD's favor.")
The prophecy said His mission was twofold: "to proclaim the acceptable year of Jehovah and the day of vengeance of our God." In the prophecy these two form one service of Christ: the announcing of the "acceptable year" and the gloomy "day." But the Lord, by His own lips, showed that the second half of the clause still waits. In His coming to this world a wide stretch of time separates the "acceptable year" from the "day of vengeance."
Another writer measures that gap by the calendar:
If you compare this with Luke 4:17, you will find the Lord shut the book in the middle of this verse. So far the Scripture was fulfilled. Those who heard Him never imagined what lay ahead. First would come this long period of grace, more than 1800 years. Only then would the book of wrath and vengeance open. Yes, this long period lay hidden in the middle of that verse.
Some scholars deny that Isaiah wrote the later chapters. Jesus read one of them as Scripture:
Did the Lord of heaven and earth not know what our modern unbelieving scholars have found out? They say only the first thirty-nine chapters made up the book of Isaiah. Yet He read a portion of Isaiah 61 — one of the so-called false chapters. When He finished He said, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Was Christ reading, pressing on the consciences of His hearers, and fulfilling something that only pretended to be written by Isaiah?
- Book. The scroll handed to Him shows a real man, trained in the Hebrew Scriptures, standing to read in His home town.
- Place. The One who inspired the writing unrolled it and found the passage Himself. He shows us how to read Scripture with reverence.
- Person. He applied Isaiah's most gospel-filled lines to Himself. The Spirit anointed Him as man to preach the gospel to the poor.
- Pause. He shut the scroll mid-sentence, before the day of vengeance. His first coming brings grace; His return brings judgment.
- Proof. By reading Isaiah 61 as Scripture, Christ put His seal on the prophet's book. The grace He announced that day still stands open.
[The] Spirit of [the] Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach glad tidings to [the] poor; he has sent me to preach to captives deliverance, and to [the] blind sight, to send forth [the] crushed delivered,
In the synagogue of His home town, Jesus reads aloud words Isaiah wrote centuries earlier, and applies them to Himself. Three questions follow: who is speaking, why the poor come first, and why He stopped reading where He did.
One who is God speaks these words. Yet the anointing He describes belongs to Him as man.
It is the man Christ Jesus. The Spirit of the Lord was not upon Him as God, but as man, and so anointed Him to preach the gospel to the poor.
The timing mattered. He had already received that anointing in public before He came home.
In Judea the Spirit of God had come upon Him in public, anointing Him for the marvelous service of grace. Now that He had returned, it was the perfect time to read this Scripture. He was first to preach the gospel to the poor, and "the common people heard Him gladly." He clearly came for the help of those in need, not to seek the backing of the rich.
Of all the things He could have named, He names preaching first. One writer explains what that preaching is, and how it works.
The great business of Christ was to preach, that is to present God. The Holy Spirit gives the right word at the right time, and in the right way. "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." The Lord does not reason; He says, Here it is. The way of God is to present what we want. You want salvation, there it is; you want mercy, and there it is. God alone can come like this, by grace, into the place of a sinner.
The order here is not accidental. Being poor means being in the place of need, and that is where a person can receive what God gives.
The preaching of glad tidings to the poor comes first, and gives character to all the rest. When man is in the place of need he can receive the gospel. When he knows he is a sinner, held captive by sin he cannot give up even when he wants to, the gospel brings him release. The blind receive their sight. Those bruised in chains receive liberty.
The captivity in view runs deeper than any political one. His own hearers showed it when they denied being in bondage at all.
The Lord Jesus preached a Gospel of "great salvation," a Gospel that delivered men from the power of sin, the bondage of Satan, and the fear of death... Their reply, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone," showed how blind they were to their condition. Because of their sins, the Assyrians and Nebuchadnezzar had led the nation away captive. Even at that time, though they lived in the land God had given them, they were under the yoke of Rome. But they were under a more grievous bondage.
"Bruised" describes those crushed under weight — and the writer illustrates it with the man of the tombs, beyond all help until Jesus came.
The Son of God in Manhood was a great Deliverer, setting at liberty those who were crushed under the yoke of the law, the dominion of sin and the bondage of Satan... A man may be respectable and religious, yet under Satan's power... If he is to be set at liberty, he must come under the power of the Lord Jesus.
He read on into the next line, then stopped in the middle of it and left the rest unread.
The prophecy declared that His mission was twofold: "to proclaim the acceptable year of Jehovah and the day of vengeance of our God." In the prophecy the announcement of the "acceptable year" and of the gloomy "day" forms a single service of Christ. But the Lord, by His own words, showed that the second half of the clause is still waiting to be fulfilled. In His coming to this world, a wide stretch of time separates the "acceptable year" from the "day of vengeance."
He was speaking to a crowd of Jews. But the blessing He announced was never meant to stop with them.
It is just as certain that the great blessings of His mission were to run in no narrow channel. He spoke to a crowd of Jews, yet He showed them how the grace that was in Him would work: it would flow out and on to sinners of the Gentiles... His mission was to the world; He came for the blessing of men, to seek and save the lost, to preach the gospel to the poor.
- Anointed — The Spirit rests on Him as man, and that anointing is the credential for everything He then does.
- Sent — His first work is not a miracle but a message. He presents God, and puts before each person what they need.
- To the poor — Need is the qualification. The gospel comes first to those with nothing, and that sets the tone for the whole list.
- For the captive — The chains are sin, Satan and the fear of death. The freedom He gives reaches further than His hearers imagined.
- The open year — He closed the book before the day of vengeance. That unread half is why the year of grace is still running today.
to preach [the] acceptable year of [the] Lord.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And having rolled up the book, when he had delivered it up to the attendant, he sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon him.
The reading is over, the scroll is back in the attendant's hands, and the whole room is silent and staring. Luke holds the scene still. Every eye is on the Man who has just read Isaiah's words about the Anointed One and then sat down as though they described Himself.
The "attendant" held a recognised office in the synagogue. He is named just once in that role:
The chazzan, or hyperetes, is translated "servant, minister, officer" in the Authorized Version. He is mentioned only once in connection with the synagogue: as the "attendant" to whom the Lord gave the book when He had finished reading. Luke 4:20.
Something in the way He read had already tied Him to the passage in their minds:
How very strongly Luke gives us the whole scene before our eyes! There was something in our Lord's manner that struck their minds as out of the ordinary. It tied Him, in their attention and questioning, to the passage He was reading. The power of the Spirit was on Him.
He had not even read the portion set for that day:
He had read, it seems, not the appointed portion according to the Jewish reading schedule, but a passage He selected Himself. That may have fixed attention on Him all the more. And now, having gained it, He opened His mouth and announced the fulfilment of the prophetic word in His own person... Never before, we may be sure, had anyone there stood up to read and then declared that the prophetic word was written of Himself. It was language the walls of that synagogue had never heard before.
What held them was the size of the claim made by an ordinary local man.
His hearers were astonished at the boldness of His assertion and at the claim He made to this dignity. And yet as they listened they could only bear witness to the gracious words that came out of His mouth... The acceptable year of the Lord had come, and with it the Anointed One — its blessed Inaugurator and Herald! His words were words of grace, and fell sweetly on ears wholly unprepared for such a sound.
Until that day, that building had heard something else:
Before this it was the law which had been ministered in the synagogues; now they were listening to words of grace.
Isaiah's sentence runs on. His reading did not.
He stopped reading in the middle of a sentence and put a full stop where in our Old Testament we have only a comma, and He closed the book. Why did He do that? The rest of the sentence is this: "and the day of vengeance of our God." There and then He was to open the acceptable year of the Lord — the year of grace, the year of blessing. And He was to postpone the day of vengeance until that year had run its course. That year has lasted until now.
Writers read the closed scroll as a deliberate gesture rather than a stopping point:
And when He read this scripture He closed the book, just before it goes on to speak of the day of vengeance of our God, pushing back, as it were, that day, lengthening out the acceptable year of the Lord to this present time... The day will come when His hand will open the book again, but meanwhile grace flows on its blessed worldwide course, and men are offered salvation.
Three things came together in front of that congregation, and one writer sees the same combination available now:
The blessed Lord standing before the audience was holding the written word in His hand, and He Himself was filled with the Spirit of God. Depend on it, there is no power in this world that can withstand such a combination as that.
The One they stared at has not changed:
What a privilege to know the Lord Jesus, who is still the same! What a privilege to gather around Him at times and receive fresh impressions of His blessed Person. At such times it is not difficult for us to have the eyes of our hearts fastened on Him.
- Handed back. The scroll went back to the chazzan, the synagogue attendant — a role named just once in connection with the synagogue.
- Held. Something in His manner tied Him to the passage before He said a word. The Spirit's power was on Him, and the reading was His own choice.
- Halted. He stopped mid-sentence and closed the book. He put a full stop where Isaiah has a comma, leaving the day of vengeance unread.
- Held open. The closed book stretches the acceptable year out to today. Grace still runs its course, and salvation is still offered.
- Held on. The same Lord, the same word, the same Spirit are ours. The response is still to fasten the eyes of the heart on Him.
And he began to say to them, To-day this scripture is fulfilled in your ears.
The reading has ended. Jesus hands the scroll back, and every eye in the Nazareth synagogue turns to the man who grew up among them. His first words are not an explanation of Isaiah. They are a claim about Himself: what the prophet promised has come true today, in front of the people listening.
He does not say the prophet's words are about to come true. He says they have come true — in a room, on a Sabbath, in a man the listeners can see. And that man is God acting among men:
They handed Him the book of the prophet Isaiah. What a moment! He who is God had become man, and stoops to act as such among men… It is the man Christ Jesus. The Spirit of the Lord was not upon Him as God, but as man, and so anointed Him to preach the gospel to the poor… There and then a real man was the vessel of the grace of God on earth.
Isaiah's sentence did not end where Jesus ended it. He read to "the year of the Lord's favor" and closed the book, leaving "and the day of vengeance of our God" unread. That break is deliberate, and it defines what "fulfilled" covers:
He stopped reading in the middle of a sentence. Where our Old Testament has only a comma, He put a full stop, and He closed the book. Why did He do that? The rest of the sentence is this: "And the day of vengeance of our God." There and then He was to open the acceptable year of the Lord — the year of grace, the year of blessing. The day of vengeance He would postpone until that year had run its course. That year has extended until now.
(Where the ESV says "the year of the Lord's favor," older translations say "the acceptable year of the Lord.")
The prophecy names the people before it names the gifts — the poor, the captive, the blind, the bruised. That order decides who can receive what Jesus announced:
The preaching of good news to the poor comes first, and gives character to all the rest. When a person is in the place of need he can receive the gospel. When he is consciously a sinner, captive to the sin which he cannot renounce even when he wants to, the gospel brings him release. The blind receive their sight. Those bruised in chains receive liberty. It is in fact "the acceptable year of the Lord"; the jubilee of God; fuller and more blessed than the law ever proclaimed in Israel.
The claim was personal, so no one could stay neutral. The crowd bore witness to what they heard and still refused the One who said it. They knew the family, so they did not know the voice:
What a word this was! Not a general explanation of the meaning. It demanded instant faith, or it produced the anger of unbelief. They all bore Him witness, and they saw the power of grace shining out in Him. Yet they were unchanged, and they did not know the voice — He was the son of Joseph, one of them.
The words "this Scripture" put His own authority behind the scroll in His hands. That includes the later chapters of Isaiah, which some claim Isaiah never wrote:
He read a portion of Isaiah 61 — one of the so-called false chapters. When He finished He said, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Was Christ reading, applying to the consciences of His hearers, and fulfilling something that falsely claimed to be written by Isaiah?… The full verbal inspiration of the Scriptures is the ground of all authority. Hold fast, then, the written word of God.
The day of vengeance is still unread. So the announcement made at Nazareth still stands, and it puts a question to the reader:
He declared that this prophecy was fulfilled in their hearing that day. He stopped short in the middle of our verse 2… When He had read that far, He shut the book and sat down, with words of grace to all. Did He speak the truth? A great deal turns on this for your souls. Was He really the One the Spirit of the Lord foretold, the One God the Father had sealed? If so, your salvation turns on Him. Do not say that words of grace are hard. What? Hard to be saved by God, according to the fulness of His mercy in Christ! The same Lord that saves now will be the Judge by and by.
- Today. "Today" is the word that changes everything. Prophecy stops being a promise and becomes a Person standing in the room.
- The comma. Jesus closed the book mid-sentence. He opened the year of God's favor that day and postponed the day of vengeance. That half of the verse is still unread.
- The poor first. The jubilee He opened reaches those who know their need — poor, captive, blind, bruised. It is fuller than anything the law ever proclaimed in Israel.
- No neutral seat. A claim like this demands instant faith or produces the anger of unbelief. Nazareth bore Him witness and still rejected the speaker as Joseph's son.
- Still open. The same year of grace has run from that Sabbath until now — the One who saves today is the One who will judge later.
And all bore witness to him, and wondered at the words of grace which were coming out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this the son of Joseph?
Jesus had just read Isaiah's promise in the synagogue of His home town and announced it fulfilled. The room answered with two things at once: admiration for how He spoke, and a question about who His father was. Everything turns on whether wonder at His words will become faith in His Person.
Grace was not only the subject of what He said. One writer finds it in the sound of the words too.
What amazed them was His "words of grace." These words presented the grace of God, so they were winning words — both gracious and graceful. Luke may be playing on both senses of the phrase. They were words of pure grace (not a word about "the day of vengeance," Isaiah 61:2). They were also attractive, appealing words, with a charm of their own.
One writer traces that same grace right through His life on earth.
The grace of His lips showed itself all through His wonderful path here. He was full of grace and truth. Even His enemies had to admit, "No one ever spoke like this man!" while others marveled at the gracious words that were coming from His mouth.
One writer sets what Jesus brought beside what was spoken at Mount Sinai.
How different all this was from what was spoken out of the blackness and darkness at Sinai! This was good news for the poor. It was not the Creditor demanding payment from the debtor. Forgiveness breathed through every word He spoke. He had come to tell people about the grace and compassion and love of God. His presence among them was the witness of all this to them. God had drawn near to them as a Saviour. There was bread for the hungry, clothing for the naked, freedom for the captive, and light for those who had long sat in darkness. And the people marveled at the words of grace that came from His mouth. It was all so different from what their ears were used to hearing.
They spoke well, they marveled, they said. One writer reads that sequence as a picture of unbelief, and points to what their wonder still lacked.
This is one particular display of unbelief — "They bore witness … they wondered … they said." Above all places, they expected at home the displays of power they had heard of elsewhere. But they did not realise that the display of divine power was morally dependent on faith. When He was known as "Joseph's son," they could not receive Him in the power of His coming. Weighed as a whole, it is a very interesting and instructive picture of unbelief at work. And note: He presented Himself to them here not by general miraculous testimony, but in Person, offering Himself in gracious personality, graciously suited to their situation.
They could not deny what they had just heard, so they questioned the speaker instead. Their question was also wrong on the facts.
But unbelief gives itself away at once. "Is not this Joseph's son?" They could not deny the grace, but they despised His Person: "He was despised and rejected by men." In fact, unbelief is always blind. He was not Joseph's son, except in law — He was God's Son.
Behind the question lay a doubt about His credentials. Another writer says the puzzle should have made them look into it.
He had not learned these things in the schools of the rabbis. He did not belong to the priestly tribe, and the priests had given Him no papers allowing Him to speak like this. Was He not Joseph's son, son only of a lowly carpenter? But He did have these things: why did they not look into it, and so find that God, not man, was the Author of what He spoke?
The rejection did not come from the religious authorities in the capital. It came from neighbours.
So grace met a clear rejection the very first time it was preached. And this did not happen in Jerusalem among the scribes and Pharisees, but in the humbler parts of Galilee, in the very place where He grew up. Their familiarity with Him acted as a veil upon their hearts.
That difficulty still applies wherever a person is already known.
Perhaps that is one of the hardest places to preach — the place where we grew up! To our neighbours, to the people we work with every day, to those who know us well.
- Grace spoken. His words were grace itself. Not one word about the day of vengeance, and a charm in the way He said them.
- Grace unlike Sinai. No creditor demanding payment. Forgiveness in every word He spoke, God drawing near as Saviour, bread for the hungry and light for those in darkness.
- Grace admired. They spoke well, they marveled, they questioned. One writer calls that sequence a picture of unbelief, since the display of divine power waited on faith they did not have.
- Grace refused. "Is not this Joseph's son?" was blind as well as dismissive. In law He was Joseph's son. In truth He was God's Son.
- Grace veiled. Grace met its first refusal, and not from scholars in the capital. It came from neighbours, and knowing Him so well became a veil over their hearts.