It’s that time of year. Many of us are encountering the opening chapters of Luke’s Gospel afresh as we prepare to celebrate our Savior’s birth.
Produced in partnership with LifeWay, The Gospel of Luke: From the Outside In is a 12-session group study offering a thorough look at the life of Jesus through the eyes of Luke and the interpretation of scholars David Morlan and D. A. Carson.
The following excerpt from the lesson on Luke 1-2 features written commentary from Morlan and video teaching from Carson.
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Long Story
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In the first two chapters of his Gospel, Luke highlights that Jesus didn’t arise out of a contextless situation. God didn’t choose him from any random family or people, nor did he just drop him in out of nowhere. Jesus was connected intimately with what God had been doing with Israel through ages past. Indeed, the story Luke tells about Jesus isn’t a new story, but rather the culmination of one reaching back thousands of years.
So if the story Luke is telling connects Jesus with the story of Israel in the Old Testament, then that means the God connected to Jesus is the Lord of Israel. The God who called Abraham and spoke through the ancient prophets is the same God whose plan unfolds in the opening scenes of Luke’s narrative.
Echoes of Creation
And a major character at work is the Holy Spirit. Indeed, the language used for the conception of Jesus (Luke 1:35) echoes the language for the beginning of creation itself. Genesis 1:2 says, “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Just as the Spirit “hovered” over the deep before God’s great miracle of creation, so he “overshadows” Mary before the miracle of Christ’s conception.
Luke assures his readers that “the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). This previews a special relationship between Jesus and the Spirit that will become increasingly evident as his ministry progresses. It also reveals the magnitude of what the Father is doing in Jesus—it is an act on the scale of creation itself.
Superior to John
If the story of Israel and activity of God come together dramatically in the person of Jesus, what does this tell us about him? Jesus is utterly unique. And the main way Luke demonstrates this is through a comparison with John the Baptist. John is an immensely important prophet like Elijah who prepares the way for God’s people; Jesus is God’s own Son who will rule on David’s eternal throne. While John’s conception occurs in the conventional way, Jesus’ comes about through the creative work of the Holy Spirit. While John, like the Old Testament prophets before him, points to salvation, Jesus actually brings salvation. John’s father, Zechariah, gives him the role of prophet and forerunner while directing his attention mostly to the one who “raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David” (Luke 1:69). Even as an adult John admits his baptism was just with water while he pointed to Jesus’ baptism being with “the Holy Spirit and fire” (Luke 3:15-18).
By providing a comparison of John and Jesus, Luke wants us to see how truly unique Jesus is. If John, a great prophet of God, wasn’t worthy to untie Jesus’ sandals, what does that tell us about Jesus? If Jesus says “among those born of women none is greater than John” and concludes “yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he,” what does that tell us about the importance of the kingdom Jesus is establishing (Luke 7:28)? John was great, but Jesus was absolutely unique.
Worldwide Significance
Luke doesn’t only situate Jesus within the history of God’s people, but within world history as well. The events he recounts happened “in the days of Herod, king of Judea” during the rule of “Caesar Augustus . . . when Quirinius was governor of Syria” (Luke 2:1-2). The following chapter further roots Jesus’ public ministry within world history: “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene” (Luke 3:1).
By doing this, Luke is indicating that Jesus will not just affect Jewish history, but the history of the world. The stage is set for global ramifications. The borders of his kingdom will stretch to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Indeed, this baby will be a “light of revelation to the Gentiles”—an ancient vocation Israel had forsaken long before (Luke 2:32; cf. Isa. 49:6).