His Mission (eBook)

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JESUS THE SON OF GOD, THE SON OF MARY

Luke 1–2

John Piper

Only in one place in the Gospel of Luke does the author speak in the first person, referring to himself. He does this three times in the first four verses of the book:

Never again does Luke refer to himself as “me” or “us” in this Gospel. And the reason he does it here is plain: he wants to come right out and be crystal clear about why he is writing this book. He is writing this account, he says, “that you [Theophilus, or John Piper, or add your name] may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught” (v. 4).

To Have Certainty

My focus in this chapter is on the first two chapters of the Gospel. We are not left wondering why Luke wrote these chapters. His purpose (that Theophilus will have certainty concerning the things he had been taught) is so explicit and so prominent at the beginning of the Gospel that I want to linger over it for a moment to clarify where this chapter is going.

Behind the translation “that you may have certainty” is the idea of knowing the “security,” “safety,” or “stability” of what you’ve been taught. The Greek word Luke uses, asphaleian (here translated as “certainty”), is used in two other places in the New Testament. One is Acts 5:23 (AT): “We found the prison locked in all security [asphaleia]”—usually translated “securely locked.” The other is 1 Thessalonians 5:3: “While people are saying, ‘There is peace and security [asphaleian],’ then sudden destruction will come upon them.” The same word is used nineteen times in the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament), where it almost always means “safety.”

So the idea behind “that you may have certainty” in Luke 1:4 is that you may know not just the things you’ve been taught, but also something about them: their locked-down, secure, unshakable, solid, stable, immovable reality.

The Kind of Knowing That Lasts

I stress this not only because Luke puts it first, but because we live in a day when many Christians—perhaps like Theophilus—have been taught things, but they do not know those things this way. They know them the way one knows a cloud, not the way one knows a mountain. Viewpoints about God and the Bible, and right and wrong, float in people’s minds, ready at any moment to be blown away by the slightest resistance and replaced by another cloud.

Luke does not want Theophilus—or you—to know these things that way. He wants us to know the asphaleian of the things—not just the things, not just the doctrines, but also the asphaleian of them. They are the kind of reality that is locked-down, secure, safe, stable, unchanging. I write my Gospel, says Luke, that you may know “the safety—the bolted-down security—the asphaleian” of what you’ve been taught. These things are safe from being stolen, safe from being changed, safe from ceasing to be what they are, safe from becoming unimportant or irrelevant, safe from not being reality anymore. These things, Theophilus, will always be.

This is the kind of knowing that caused the church to survive through three centuries of frequent and terrible persecution. This is the kind of knowing that is immovable in the face of disease, abandonment, disillusionment, grief, and martyrdom. Luke has tended Paul’s body through countless beatings and imprisonments (2 Cor. 11:23). He knows what kind of knowing lasts and what kind doesn’t.

Most Excellent Danger

Luke knows the kind of knowing that tempts “most excellent Theophilus” (1:3). He writes about “most excellent Felix” in Acts 24. He writes about “most excellent Festus” in Acts 26. Luke tells us that most excellent Felix had “a rather accurate knowledge of the Way” (Acts 24:22), but he was alarmed at Paul’s preaching, sent him away (v. 25), and then hoped for a bribe from him (v. 26). This is the kind of “accurate knowing” that destroys churches, leaves courageous Christians in jail, and brings the whole Christian movement into disrepute.

When Paul preached to “most excellent Festus,” the governor said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are out of your mind; your great learning is driving you out of your mind” (Acts 26:24). And Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words” (v. 25). It is dangerous to be a “most excellent” anything. Locked-down, secure, unchangeable knowledge has a way of troubling the rich and powerful. You can’t buy truth with your riches. You can’t control it with your power. It’s just too risky to know things that way. It doesn’t give you enough wiggle room.

But this is what Luke is after for “most excellent Theophilus.” He is saying: I am writing not just that you may know the things you’ve been taught about Jesus, but that you may know the asphaleian of them—the locked-down, unshakable, unchanging, absolutely secure reality of them. That you may know they are—like mountains, not clouds.

Weaving Together Jesus and the Baptist

How does Luke help Theophilus (and us) in Luke 1–2 know the securely locked-down, unchangeable nature of the reality of what he’s been taught? He does it by weaving together the stories of Jesus and John the Baptist—the announcements of their births, the ways they were conceived, the ways they were born, the songs their parents sang over them, and even an encounter between them while they were still in the wombs of their mothers.

And in telling these stories of John and Jesus, Luke makes clear and solid the most important realities in the universe: God, Christ, salvation, and faith. That’s my outline.

1. The Certainty of God

First, Theophilus, I want you to know the asphaleian of God. “Zechariah was serving as priest before God” (Luke 1:8). Gabriel appeared to him and said, “I stand in the presence of God” (v. 19). Zechariah’s son, Gabriel said, “will turn many . . . to the Lord their God” (v. 16). Later, “Gabriel was sent from God” to the Virgin Mary (v. 26) and said: “You have found favor with God” (v. 30); “The Lord God will give [your son] the throne of his father David” (v. 32); “The child . . . will be . . . the Son of God” (v. 35); and “Nothing will be impossible with God” (v. 37). Then Mary sang, “My spirit rejoices in God” (v. 47). When John was born and Zechariah’s mouth was opened, he worshiped, saying, “Blessed be the Lord God” (v. 68). When Jesus was born, “a multitude of the heavenly host [praised] God” (2:13), saying, “Glory to God in the highest” (v. 14). When Jesus was presented in the temple, Simeon took him up “and blessed God” (v. 28). Old Anna gave “thanks to God” (v. 38). And Jesus as a boy “increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (v. 52).

In case Theophilus misses the point about God, Luke makes the same point about the Lord. Zechariah and Elizabeth walked “blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord” (1:6). There appeared to Zechariah “an angel of the Lord” (v. 11), who told him his son would be “great before the Lord” (v. 15). The angel said he would “make ready for the Lord a people prepared” (v. 17). When Elizabeth conceived, she said, “Thus the Lord has done for me” (v. 25). The angel came to Mary and said, “The Lord is with you!” (v. 28). She responded, “I am the servant of the Lord” (v. 38). When Elizabeth met Mary, she said, “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (v. 45). Then Mary sang over her son, “My soul magnifies the Lord” (v. 46). All the friends of Elizabeth heard “that the Lord had shown great mercy to her” (v. 58). When her son, John, was born, “the hand of the Lord was with him” (v. 66). His father prophesied over him, “You, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord” (v. 76). When Jesus was born, “an angel of the Lord” came to the shepherds (2:9). They spoke of “this thing . . . which the Lord has made known to us” (v. 15). And in the temple, Mary and Joseph presented Jesus...