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The Response of the Audience to Jesus' Teaching on Isaiah 61

(Luke 4:14-15) "And He began teaching in their synagogues

and was praised by all."

The general public enjoyed Jesus' preaching, because it was lively, authoritative, well-organized, practical, interesting, bold and true in contrast with "the lifeless repetitions and senseless trivialities" of the ordinary rabbis and other teachers.­Plummer

(Luke 4:20) " ... and the

eyes of all in the

synagogue were

fixed upon Him."

This vivid description of Jesus' preaching is obviously that of an eye-witness from whom Luke obtained this infonnation. The intense interest of His hearers was "fixed" on Jesus as He spoke because of His fame as a powerful teacher and miracle-worker, because he was brought up among them, and because of His countenance and manner of reading the Scripture.

"The atmosphere in the probably crowded synagogue is surcharged with curiosity. Everybody in the audience is wondering what their townsman, the former carpenter, about whom

they have been hearing so much oflate (see verse 23), is going to say in elucidation and application of the Scripture passage He has read a moment ago. He may have read (and said) more than Luke repons.... All is quiet, so quiet that one can hear a feather drop. Every eye is fixed on Jesus."­Hendriksen

"There must have been a dignity and a power in His whole appearance, in every inflection of His voice, and in every gesture and movement, that riveted all eyes in the synagogne upon Him.

The scene was far above what any one in Nazareth realized. THE WORD HIMSELF HAD READ THE WORD TO THEM."- Lenski

(Luke 4:22) "And all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gradous words which were falling

from His lips .... "

The "Praise" and "Astonishment" of Jesus' Audience

"Were speaking well" is literally "bore witness." '''They bore wimess to Him,' not that what He said about Himself, but that what rumor had said respecting His

4 f THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon f Mayl Jnne, 1995

power as a teacher, was true. They praised Him in an empty-handed way. What they remembered of Him led them to

think that the reports about Him were exaggerations; but they were willing to admit that this was not the case .... What follows shows that they did not believe the teaching which so stanled aM impressed them, anymore !pan those whose attention was riveted on Stephen, before he began to.

address them, were disposed to accept his teaching." - Plummer

"the gradous words which were falling

from His lips"

'jesus' teaching was presented with such graciousness, winsomeness, power and conviction that the irnmediate reaction of His heaters was, at least on the surface,

favorable; and his audience verbally testified to His ability.

(Luke 4:28-29) "And all the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things; and

they rose up and cast Him out of the dty, and led Him to the

brow of the hill on which their dty had been built, in order to

throw him down the cliff"

The Cause of the Rage in Jesus' Audience in Nazareth!

The reaction of the audience to Jesus changed from praise, to keen interest, to enthusiasm, to astonishment, to scepticism, to

envy to blind hare and bloodthirstiness. Th~se people were [Ulious! What did Jesus say that made them so hostile? (a). While showing enthusiasm about Jesus' remarks about the breaking in of the blessings of the Jubilee provisions and the New Era of God's Kingdom, His audience took great offense at Jesus' claim that He was the Messianic Agent by Whom this jubilant Kingdom comes. "The progressively worsening conflict reflected in the telescoped development of the incident desclibed by 1.uke centers upon the challenge of the people to Jesus' functionally claimed Messianic status." - Sloan. They could have said, "How can you be the Messiah, you are only Joseph's son." (b). Jesus precipitated this violent reaction and attempt on His life by the Nazareth audience by comparing them as Jews unfavorably to believing Gentiles, i.e., non-Jews! As always]esus was in complete control of the siruation. They understand clearly the point of His illustrations about Elijah and Elisha in answer to their demand for miracles. ] esus was com paling His audience in Nazareth to "those ] ews who were judged less wonhy of Divine benefits than the heathen. It is this that infuliates them, just as it infuriated the Jews atJerusa1em to be told by Paul that the heathen would receive the blessings which they despised, Acts 13:46, 50; 22:21, 22. Yet to this day the position remains the same; and Gentiles enjoy the Divine privileges of which the Jews have deprived themselves, (because oftheir unbelieO."­Plummer. And (c). Compaling Himself to such prophets as Elijah and Elisha, and exalting Himself over them increased the anger of His audience.

Lenski makes a wise application of Jesus' methods at Nazareth. "Many modem preachers would regard this as the gravest kind of mistake on Jesus' part. They think it the part of wisdom to be soft and yielding toward unbelief and presumption and never to stlike it down with the cudgel of the law. But Jesus kept causing commotions like thiS, and Peter and James followed His example, Acts 4:10,19,20, so did all the apostles, Acts 5:30f, likewise Stephen, Acts 7:51 £. THE HARDER THE UNBELIEF, THE HARDER THE BLOWS IT RECENES FROM JESUS, Mat. 23: 12£."

The Expression 0/ the Rage a/Jesus' Audience

The violent and blind rage of the audience in the synagogue was out-of-control, vicious, and murderous. The congregation turned into a raging mob which would be satisfied with nothing less that the brutal death of jesus, because of what He taught. And on the Sabbath at that! They pushed Jesus to a high hill, which falls into a precipice on the far side, where they tried to crowd him over the overhanging rocks to His death below. The desires and actions of this crowd in Nazareth foresh~dow the desires and actions of the crowds in jerusalem which later clied out for the violent death ofJesus. "The whole attempt to put jesus to death was perhaps an instance of the fonn of punishment which the jews called 'the rebel's beating,' which was somewhat analogous to Lynch Law. The 'rebel's beating' was administered by the people, without liial and on the spot, when anyone was caught in what seemed to be a flagrant violation of some law or tradition."-

Plummer. How humiliating for Jesus!

Hardening one's heart against the preaching of the Bible's gospel can make that one a murderer!

The Miraculous Departure a/Jesus

It was not yet time for Christ to die! So He uses His divine power, perf alms an undescribed miracle, and frustrates the murderous desires of the crowd---"Butpassing through their midst, He went His way." What a kingly Savior! He went, not the way the crowd was pushing Him, but rather, He went HIS OWN way! Luke does not tell us how jesus did this, and so we are left in silence and in awe. Jesus tliumphed over Satan in the wildemess, now He triumphs over His enemies in Nazareth. But how did He do it? For the present we do not know. "Shall we say that jesus' calm and majestic bealing, diffeling so sharply from their boisterous display of bittemess, made such a deep impression on these potential murders that they fTOze on the spot!' - Hendliksen. Did He blind them, as God did the Sodomites and Sylians? Did He strike them paralyzed to the ground, as He did the soldiers who came with Judas to arrest Him? Did He fill them with confusion as He did His enemies in O. T. days? His hour had not yet come! And when it did come, He voluntalily surrendered Himself to it!

Remember what He said: "r am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life Jar the sheep. -­No one has taken it away Jrom Me,

Mayl June, 1995 ~, THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon ~ 5

but I lay it down on My own

initiative."- John 10:14,18.

The people of Nazareth had asked for a miracle from jesus, and this was the miracle He gave them! And, as far as we know, jesus never returned to Nazareth again!

Conclusion

This Passage Helps Us a Great Deal in Looking

at Life in Christ as Jubilee-Sabbath Life

recreation were thus basic to the sabbath: man RESTS in God's finished work of redemption proclaimed before the time. By faith, man, anticipating the final victory and rej oidng in the present deliverance, lives by faith in the suffidency of God. ----

"Clearly, the renewal of the earth is a basic aspect of the Sabbath. The renewal of all things is basic to the Sabbath, and the earth is central to this renewal. Men can ignore the Sabbath

which is also poverty-free, and this is only possible in tenns of His Law, (i.e., the whole Word of God). ----

'''Man, like God is to work and to rest; thus human life is to be a copy of Divine life.'- Oehler. The work of God's people is to be instrumental in the restoration of the divine order to the earth. ... 'Divine labor terminates in happy rest; not till the Creator rests satisfied in the contemplation of His works is His

creation itself complete. The weekly Sabbath, the every seventh-year Sabbath, and the fiftieth-year Jubilee Sabbath all recall the Creation Sabbath. The Sabbath institutions in Israel recalled Israel's redemption and recreation by the Creator. "The goal of

'The Sabbath .. .looks backward to the creation rest for its pattern and

faithi it looks upward to Ciod in the assurance of His grace and vidorYi

it looks forward to the great

So, too, hUman labor is not to run on in resultless circles, but to terminate in a happy harmony of existence.'­dark. The Jubilee in part brings out this aspect of the Sabbath. Moreover, because 'the

Sabbath Consummation."

the Sabbath, as Hebrews 3 makes clear, is the promised land, the new creation in jesus Christ. The Sabbath therefore sets forth the restoration and restitution of all things in Christ. In the jubilee year, as in each sabbatical year, debts ran out. The modern statute of limitations on the collection of debts is an adaptation of this Biblical law. In the jubilee year also, the rural land holdings reverted to their original owners; slaves were freed, as on each sabbatical year. The Jubilee marked a two-year holiday in which covenant man celebrated the foretaste of the great sabbath of the new creation. Because the Jubilee began on the evening of the Day of Atonement, it made clear the foundation of the new creation, atonement through the blood ofthe Lamb of the Covenant. Creation and

reqUirements of the earth only at the peril of judgment and death.

"The essence of the Sabbath is the work of restoration, God's new creation; the goal of the Sabbath is the second creation rest of God. Man is required to rest and to allow earth and animals to rest, that God's restoration may work, and creation be revitalized. Every Sabbath rest points to the new creation, the regeneration and restoration of all things. God's work of restoration is from the ground up .... ----

"The Sabbath means rest, forgiveness, the cancellation of debt and weariness. It means fresh life. Since the unbeliever is by nature a slave, he is not released from debts, Deut. 15: 1-6. God's goal is a debt-free society

6 ~ THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon ~ Mayl June, 1995

whole course of human history is not to run on in dreary endlessness,'

because its goal is a glorious victory, we too 'are to find a completion in an harmonious and God-given order' which 'is guaranteed by the Sabbath of creation, and prefigured by the sabbatical seasons.' The Sabbath of creation, unlike the previous six days, is not eI)ded with an even. 'The Divine rest ofthe seventh day of creation, which has no evening, hovers over the world's progress, that it may at last absorb it into itself.'

"Work and goal, effort and result, these are the two concepts which are basic to the idea of the Sabbath, according to Oehler. The Sabbath gives purpose to man's life, in that it makes labor meaningful and purposive: it links it to a joyful consummation. The Sabbath .. .looks BACKWARD

to the creation rest for its pattem and faith; it looks UPWARD to God in the assurance of His grace and victOlY; it looks FORWARD to the great Sabbath Consummation.----

"The Sabbath presupposes work, work fulfilling God's creation mandate and perfolmed under ,God's law, and the Sabbath is the joyful rest fTom the exerdse of godly dominion. On the Sabbath, a man rejoices that the

shall lack faith also in the meaning and centrality of forgiveness. The Jubilee realm is one of cancellation, the cancellation of debts, slavelY, sin and death. With those who are the people of God we share this Jubilee grace, forgiveness. Forgiveness thus is a bold step into God's future, into the world ofthe Jubilee. -­Through forgiveness we assume the reality of a world and a heavenly city, a new creation and

mankind. This appears espedally in the words of Isaiah which He quoted in the synagogue at Nazareth and to which He attached the deepest meaning. He points to the condition of man as one of spiritual poverty, brol1en-heartedness, captivity, blindness and mutilation. This spiritual distress is caused by the sin of mankind. For sin makes man inwardly, (and outwardly)

poor, sows earth is the Lord's, and all the fullness thereof, Ps. 24: 1. In that confidence man rests, and in that joy he surveys the work of his hands, knowing that his 'labor is not in vain in the Lord,' I Cor. 15:58, .... because the sovereign God makes ALL things work together for good unto

"The gospel of Christ affects and transforms the heart and

the society of mankind, globally, comprehensively, definitively, progressively, perfectly and eternally,"

desttuction in his heart and life, makes him a captive in its stranglehold, makes him spiritually blind so that he loses all \~sion and all power of clear judgment, and crushes his personality." -Geldenhuys

How wonderful it

them that love Him .... " - R.]. Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law, pgs. 140-149, (Nutley, N.]., The Craig Press, 1973).

"The Jubilee means liberty, healing, comfort, joy, beauty, and forgiveness to the redeemed of the Lord, and vengeance to God's enemies. The purpose is that God might be glorified.. When our Lord read these verses in the synagogue, Lk. 4:16-20, He concluded by declal1ng, 'This day is this SC11 pture fulfilled in your ears,' Lk. 4:21, which was the beginning of His open declaration to them that He was the Messiah. The proclamation of the Kingdom of God and of the Jubilee were one and the same thing, and the prelude was the remission of sins, Mk. 1:3-5; Mat. 3:1-6. If we lack faith in God, in His Kingdom and its glOl10US Jubilee world, then we

the King thereof, an d we institute the reign of that world here and now, although we see it only through a glass darkly." - R.]. Rushdoony, Salvation and Godly Rule, pg. 292, (Valledto, Cal., Ross House Books, 1983).

This Passage Reveals a Great Deal About Fallen Man's

True Condition

"No one will ever be able to do much for mankind unless he has a deep realization of the ten1ble need of the human race. An imperfect insight into the actual needs and miselY of man results in giving inadequate prescriptions for finding relief. Now it is characteristic of the Savior's preaching that He refelTed in a remarkably plain manner to the unfathomable spiritual need of

is, therefore, to Imow that Jesus Christ came not merely to tell us about solutions to our problems, but actually to BRING deliverance from our sin and total renewal of our selves into our lives as our Redeemer and King, as we repent of our sins, rest in Him alone as our Savior, and sunender our hearts and lives to Him. See Ephesians 2:8-10.

This Passage Reveals a Great Deal

About the True Nature of the Salvation Christ Came

to Earth to Bring to Us

Salvation is personal, global and comprehensive: it affects and transforms evelY aspect of man's life, inside and out, spititually and physically, individually and socially, past, present and future. It is not merely a subjectivistic expel1ence, nor is it simply political change; and it is not "pie

Mayl June, 1995 'I' THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon ~ 7

in the sky by and by." The gospel of Christ affects and transfonns the heart and the sOciety of mankind, globally, comprehensively, definitively, progressively, perfectly and eternally. It is addressed to man in his spiritual life, as well as in his intellectual, emotional, physical, social, political and economic life. It gradnally "leavens" everything, until the whole loaf of human experience has been "leavened" by the power of the gospel of Christ. Salvation is a New Order, a new creation, in which the old is passing away and everything has become new, II Cor. 5:17.

Christ came to bring real, substantial, and lasting change into a person's heart, family, and in every one of his personal relationships and daily endeavors in this life as well as eternal life and moral perfection in the presence of God after death. He came to bring the presence and power of God into the hearts of lives of men and women and youth. Believe in the LordJesus and you will be saved, and your house.

Jesus came to restore all the underlying prindples illustrated in the provisions of the Jubilee Year to all His true Israel, Gal. 3:29.1 (1). He came to liberate His people from all forms of slavery. (2). He came to restore the earth to His people, who are to repossess it as their covenant inheritance, as they dispossess the false heirs, (the reprobate), by the carrying out of the Great Commission. (3). He came to give His people rest from their labors, that they might live in the enjoyment of the abundance of God's bleSSings. (4). He came to bring spiritual renewal and regeneration to all His people.

(5). He came to forgive His people of their sin and to heal them of all sin's effects.

This Passage Tells Us a Great Deal

About the Importance and Power of the Preaching

of the Gospel

Jesus told His hearers in Nazareth that Isaiah 61 and the promises of the Jubilee Year, the New Order of righteousness, the jUbilant Kingdom of God in all its saving power and blessedness, were being fulfilled as He was preaching the gospel from Isaiah 61, just as He was explaining what these things meant and how they were related to Him. The point is this: the jubilant kingdom of God and its comprehensive salvation come into our hearts, homes and societies through the preaching of Jesus Christ! As Christ's Church and her God-sent ministers faithfully preach the gospel of the Bible, the resurrected and reigtIing Jesus Christ Himself preaches through them into the heans and lives of His people; and WHAT JESUS PREACHES HAPPENS! When He preaches the New Age of the Jubilee, the Jubilee comes, Lk. 4:21. As He preaches the Kingdom of God, the kingdom comes, Mark 1:15. As He preaches repentance, people repent and believe, Acts 5:31. As He preaches peace, peace and the restoration of God's order are established, Eph. 2:17. In the preaching of the resurrected Christ through the faithful preaching of men is manifested the sovereign rule of God in power and grace, with the establishment of a new order (civilization) of righteousness and

8 ~ THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon ;. Mayl Jnne, 1995

blessedness in Christ in fulfillment of God's covenant promises. The pulpit is Christ's throne from which He rules the world. "Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him Whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?" Romans 10:13-15.

This Passage Tells Us a Great Deal

About the Authority of the Bible

The entire Bible in all its verbal expressions was received by Jesus as His final authority for understanding all life, truth and duty. For Him the Bible is a unified whole, with no dichotomy between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is the root from which the New Testament grows. The Old Testament defines the tenninology and concepts of the New Testament; and the New Testament fulfills the promises and hopes of the Old Testament.

This Passage Tells Us a Great Deal

About the Nature of the Christian's Mission

in the World

In his calling from God, the Christian is not to be church-oriented but kingdom-Oriented. o. Palmer Robertson's comments are helpful on this pOint. "The 'fundamentalist' may conceive of the significance of Christianity more narrowly in tenus of the salvation of the 'soul.' Too often he may fail to consider adequately

the effect of redemption on the total life-style of man in the context of an all-embracive covenant. (or kingdom). That view results frequently in a by-passing of the responsibility of redeemed man to cany fOlward the implications of his salvation into the world of economics. politiCS. business and culture.

"The total life-involvement of the covenant. (or kingdom). relationship provides tlle framework for considering the connection between the 'great commission' and the 'cultural mandate.' Entrance into God's kingdom may occur only by repentance and faith. which reqUires the preaching of the gospel. This 'gospel,' however. must not be conceived of in the naHowest of possible tenns. It is the gospel of the 'kingdom.' It involves discipling men to Jesus Christ. Integral to that discipling process is the awakening of an awareness of the obligations of man to the totality of God's creation. Redeemed man. remade in God's intage. must fulfill---even surpass---the role originally determined for the first man. In such a manner. the mandate to preach the gospel and the mandate to form a culture glorifying to God merge with one another."- o.P. Robeltson. The Christ of the Covenants. pgs. 82-83. (Phillipsburg. N.J.. Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company. 1980).

lUThe reactions of scepticism! wrath and murderous hate disclosed at Nazareth are viewed as exceptional and isolated within the developing Galilean ministry. Although l uke presents the rejection at Nazareth as quite exceptional. it is nevertheless extraordinarily arresting that this discordant note is struck at the very

beginning of his narrative of our Lord's public ministry. Its prominent position exhibits forcefully and even spectacularly the fact that Jesus would not win universal claim. And one may also recognize that, in the context of the entire Gospel. with the overpowering accent which ill in common with the other Gospels, places upon the passion and death of Christ, the rejection at Nazareth serves to prepare the way for the understanding of the more encompassing rejection which lay ahead."- Stonehouse. Tlte Witness of Luke to Christ , pg. 9l.

'Wh1le the moral demands of the Jubilee legislation remain binding on us in Christ, the ceremonial and sacrificial aspects of the Old Testament calendar of feast-days and the cyclic observances of these feasts were "put out of gearll by Christ's work of redemption. As Greg Bahnsen writes: "Colossians 2:16f looses us from the ceremonial

elements of the sabbath system ...• and passages such as Romans 14:sf and Galatians 4: 10 teach that we need not distinguish these ceremonial days any longer. As Christ provides for entrance to the eternal Sabbath rest of God by His substitutionary death upon the cross, He makes the typological elements, (e.g., offerings) of the Sabbath system irrelevant (things which were a SHADOW of the coming substance according to Colossians 2:17; Heb. 10:1.8. By accomplishing our redemption Christ also binds us to the observance of that weekly Sabbath which prefigures our eternal Sapbath. Heb. 4."- Tlteollomy ill Christiall EthiCS. pg. 229-230, (Nutley. N.]., Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company. 1977). R.]. Rushdoony believes that the observance of the fifty year sabbatical cycle is st!ll binding upon the Christian as an enhancement to his l!berty in Christ. See his Institutes of Biblical Law. pgs. 140[[. Q

Christ College Press Release On Thursday evening, May 25th Christ College of Greenville, SC, graduated it first class in special ceremonies at Reedy River Presbyterian Church. Three students were awarded the1r degrees. two the Associates of Arts LWO year degree and one the Bachelor of Arts four year degree. Noah Telling of Willis. VA and Tim Martin of Greenville, SC both members of the peA received the A.A degrees upon success­fully completing the two year academic program. Jay Nelken of Sacramento, CA, member of the Reformed Church US was awarded the B.A degree with Summa Cum Laude honors. The graduaUon exercises were held at Reedy River Pres. Church in a worship service led by Dr. Jeny Crick. Rev. Dick Knodel. Rev. Michael Mang and Dr. Kenneth Gentry. The graduation message "Two Perspectives" was preached by Dr. Gentry and pointed out the dlstinctives of the Christian worldvlew as contrasted to the non-Christian world view . In the process, the message nOled Christ College's commitment to a distinctively biblical, reformed, and VanTillian theological perspective. The tape is available for a gift of $20 to Christ College. Also Miss Sarah Bogue was awarded ,he annual Golden Quill award for best paper produced in the Research and Publication course. Her paper was a study of the Christian's obligation to the civil government. She was given a certificate and a $50 award.

The first graduation class of Christ College

Mayl Jun~. 1995 l' THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon l' 9