GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 4:20-21
20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is been fulfilled in your hearing.”
The custom was for the preacher to read the text while standing, and then to sit down to preach. Since synagogues were usually homes, there was no need to project one’s voice. We use a pulpit today for three reasons: First, it is a piece of architecture from the days before electrical sound systems. The preacher’s voice carried better if spoken from an elevated platform. It was often amplified by a simple apparatus like an inverted wooden drum above the pulpit called a schaldeckel. Second, the pulpit gives the listener a point of focus that is comfortable in a large room like a church: people in back can still see the speaker even though there might be hundreds of people in between. This can be helpful for people who are hard of hearing; they can see the preacher’s lips. Third, the pulpit, like the robe, hides the preacher’s clothes and stance so that people are not tempted to think, “He dresses better than some other preacher I know,” or “Why doesn’t he dress any better than he does?” Or even, “Why does he hold his feet that way? Is he getting old?” They can focus on his message and not on trivialities. In the small space of the synagogue, the same points were mostly covered by the simple act of sitting.
We’ve seen how this prophecy was fulfilled by Jesus. Could it possibly have an intermediate fulfillment? Maybe we’d better explain what an “intermediate fulfillment” might be, first.
Some of the prophecies of the Old Testament that point to Christ may also point to someone else at the same time; someone whom the human author had in mind, while the Holy Spirit assigned the truths of the passage to Jesus. For example, in Psalm 72, Solomon prays that God would endow the king with justice and righteousness. The further along into that Psalm one reads, the clearer it is that the song applies directly to Jesus, the King of kings. And yet the words taken at face value appear as a prayer by Solomon that he and his heirs in David’s line would reign under God’s blessing and guidance. So the intermediate fulfillment is the line of Davidic kings (many of whom were rotten apples), but the final fulfillment is Christ.
Our question here in Luke 4 is, could this passage from Isaiah 61 have an intermediate fulfillment? For example, when Isaiah writes, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach the good news to the poor,” could he be talking about himself? The answer is no, and this is why:
1 . Throughout Isaiah’s book, especially in his longer prophecies (such as chapter 61), the prophet always keeps himself in the background. When he is asked to speak for God, his first-person “I / me / my” references are God speaking and not Isaiah. The only exception is in the last phrase of chapter 57, when he lets himself say: “‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked.’”
2 . Whenever Isaiah’s prophecies talk about the words or works of God, it’s always the voice of the Messiah speaking through the words of the prophecy, whether it might be about the salvation of the world, the glory of his call, the mediation of the new covenant, or his humiliating sacrificial death.
3 . Isaiah gives preeminence to the Servant of God, the Suffering Servant Christ, no matter what the subject matter or the occasion. This is the Servant who would be formed in a woman’s womb in order to rescue Jacob (Isaiah 49:5), the servant despised by kings who would nevertheless redeem the nation (49:7), the servant who would speak with the authority of God himself (50:10), who would not break a bruised reed of faith or snuff out a smoldering wick of faith, but who gathers everyone with faith in him (42:3; cp. Matthew 12:20). After doing all this, Isaiah never advances himself to the position of that servant. It is Christ, and only Christ, who fulfills these things.
We don’t have the rest of Jesus’ sermon recorded for us. He didn’t write it down to preach it, and so there is no written copy to look for. But we know the Scripture text he used, and we know his point: He is the fulfillment. He is the Messiah.
David said, “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul” (Psalm 143:8). Lift up your soul, all your trust and hope, and lash them to the cross of Jesus Christ. There, in his blood, we are saved.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota