The Gospel of Luke
ò
òòòòòòòòòòòò
Introduction[i]
The
Gospel of Luke sets the Lord before us in the character of Son of man,
revealing God in delivering grace among men. Hence, the present operation of grace
and its effect are more referred to, and even the present time prophetically,
not the substitution of other dispensations as in Matthew, but of saving
heavenly grace. At first, no doubt (and just because He is to be revealed as
man, and in grace to men), we find Him, in a prefatory part in which we have
the most exquisite picture of the godly remnant, presented to Israel, to whom
He had been promised, and in relationship with whom He came into this world;
but, afterwards, this Gospel presents moral principles which apply to man,
whosoever he may be, whilst yet manifesting Christ for the moment in the midst
of that people. This power of God in grace is displayed in various ways in its
application to the wants of men. After the transfiguration, which is recounted
earlier in the narration by Luke [See Note #1] than in the other Gospels, we find the
judgment of those who rejected the Lord, and the heavenly character of the
grace which, because it is grace, addresses itself to the nations, to sinners,
without any particular reference to the Jews, overturning the legal principles
according to which the latter pretended to be, and as to their external
standing were originally called at Sinai to be, in connection with God.
Unconditional promises to Abraham, etc., and prophetic confirmation of them,
are another thing. They will be accomplished in grace, and were to be laid hold
of by faith. After this, we find that which should happen to the Jews according
to the righteous government of God; and, at the end, the account of the death
and resurrection of the Lord, accomplishing the work of redemption. We must
observe that Luke (who morally sets aside the Jewish system, and who introduces
the Son of man as the man before God, presenting Him as the One who is filled with
all the fulness of God dwelling in Him bodily, as the man before God, according
to His own heart, and, thus, as Mediator between God and man, and centre of a
moral system much more vast than that of Messiah among the Jews) — we must
observe, I repeat, that Luke, who is occupied with these new relations
(ancient, in fact, as to the counsels of God), gives us the facts belonging to
the Lord's connection with the Jews, owned in the pious remnant of that people,
with much more development than the other evangelists, as well as the proofs of
His mission to that people, in coming into the world — proofs which ought to
have gained their attention, and fixed it upon the child who was born to them.
In
Luke, I add, that which especially characterises the narrative and gives its
peculiar interest to this Gospel is, that it sets before us that which Christ
is Himself. It is not His official glory, a relative position that He assumed;
neither is it the revelation of His divine nature, in itself; nor His mission
as the great Prophet. It is Himself, as He was, a man on the earth — the Person
whom I should have met every day had I lived at that time in Judea, or in
Galilee.
I
would add a remark as to the style of Luke, which may facilitate the study of
this Gospel to the reader. He often brings a mass of facts into one short
general statement, and then expatiates at length on some isolated fact, where
moral principles and grace are displayed.
Note #1:
That is, as to the contents of the Gospel. In the ninth Chapter, His last journey up to Jerusalem begins; and, thence, on to the latter part of the eighteenth, where (Luk_9:31) His going up to that city is noticed, the evangelist gives mainly a series of moral instructions, and the ways of God in grace now coming in. In Verse 35 of Chapter 18, (Luk_18:35), we have the blind man of Jericho already noticed as the commencement of His last visit to Jerusalem.