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Mat 1:21 "She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
THE KINGDOM COMING
Luk 1:51 He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
Luk 1:52 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate;
Luk 1:53 he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.
In the present testimony of the gospel we are being told that the one whose birth is now being announced is to be an agent of radical social change. The preoccupations of those who await the Coming Kingdom are neither cultic nor doctrinal and in a narrow sense they are not religious preoccupations; Jesus is coming to break the bondage of His people.
Zechariah, as soon as his lips are loosened, proclaimed the meaning of the birth of John the Baptist:
And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people.
And has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David;
As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.
That we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us;
to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear.
Luke 1:67-74.
This eminent expectation is all the more clear when John the Baptist spells it out:
John answered them all, saying, I baptize you with water, but He who is mightier than
I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you
with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
His pitch fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the
Wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.
So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people. Luke 3:16-18
This is the language with which John preached good news to the people. Too hastily we
have passed all this preaching of the gospel as it is all to be taken spiritually. Was John wrong in what he was expecting? No! Israel had not heard from a prophet of God
in over 400 years.
We shall see that the message Jesus brought differed from the expectations of John.
But the difference was not that Johns hopes were socio-political and the fulfillment
Jesus brought was spiritual. If the difference had been of that character, Luke would have had to begin his story differently. To be continued.
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