Luke 1:5 - Meaning and Application

The first two Gospel writers had begun with John’s baptism and his ministry, which started about six months before our Savior’s public ministry. Since the great turning point was so near, six months was a meaningful span of time, though it would have seemed small before. Luke wants to give a fuller account of Jesus’ conception and birth, so he begins even earlier with John the Baptist, Jesus’ herald and forerunner, like the morning star before the Sun of Righteousness.

He does this partly because people naturally want to know the background of great men. He also does it because John’s early life, like Jesus’ own, contained many miracles and signs of what he would become. So the inspired writer starts with John’s conception and gives us the account of his parents.

They lived in the days of Herod the king, a foreign ruler appointed by the Romans, who had recently made Judea part of the empire. This is important because it shows that the rule of Judah had fully declined, and the time had come for Shiloh, the promised ruler, to appear, according to Jacob’s prophecy (Genesis 49:10). David’s family had fallen low just when it was about to rise again in the Messiah.

We should not lose hope about religion, even when civil freedom is gone. Israel was oppressed, yet the glory of Israel was about to come. John’s father, Zacharias, was a priest, a son of Aaron. No families were ever more honored by God than Aaron’s and David’s, since one received the covenant of priesthood and the other the covenant of kingship.

Both families had failed in their honor, yet the gospel gives them honor again in their later days. Aaron’s line is honored in John the Baptist, and David’s line in Christ. Then both lines disappear from view. Christ came from David’s house, and his forerunner came from Aaron’s, because Christ’s priestly work opened the way for his royal authority.

Zacharias belonged to the course of Abia. In David’s time, Aaron’s descendants were divided into twenty-four groups so their work could be done in an orderly way. The eighth group was Abia (1 Chronicles 24:10), descended from Eleazar, Aaron’s oldest son. Some scholars think many priestly families were lost during the exile, so after the return they may have kept the old course names even if some family lines had changed.

Zacharias’ wife was also from Aaron’s family, and her name was Elisabeth, the same name as Elisheba, Aaron’s wife (Exodus 6:23). The priests, Josephus says, took care to marry within their own family so the dignity of the priesthood would be preserved. What is said of Zacharias and Elisabeth is especially important: they were a deeply religious couple.

They were both righteous before God, meaning their goodness was real, not just outward. They pleased the One whose judgment is true. Those are truly righteous who are righteous before God, like Noah in his generation (Genesis 7:1). They lived in a way that won God’s approval, and he graciously accepted them.

It is a blessed thing when husband and wife are both joined to the Lord. It is especially fitting for priests, the Lord’s ministers, and their wives to be righteous before God, so they can be examples to the people and a joy to one another. They walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless.

Their righteousness showed in the whole pattern of their lives, not in their words alone but in their actions. Their worship and daily conduct matched. They walked not only in the Lord’s ordinances, which concern worship, but also in his commandments, which govern everyday life. They were careful to obey in all things, not perfect, but consistently faithful.

So they were blameless. No one could point to any open or shameful sin in them. They lived honestly and without offense, as ministers and their families especially ought to do, so that the ministry would not be blamed through them.

Yet they had no children, which was a deep sorrow in those days. Children are a gift from the Lord, but many faithful married couples are denied this gift. Elisabeth was barren, and they had nearly lost hope, because both of them were already old. Women usually stop bearing children by that time.

Still, many notable people were born to mothers who had long been childless, such as Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Samson, and Samuel. John the Baptist was born the same way. This made his birth more striking and made the blessing more precious to his parents. It also shows that when God keeps his people waiting a long time, he sometimes rewards their patience by making the gift even more valuable when it comes.

Zacharias was serving in the temple when an angel appeared to him (Luke 1:8-11). The prophet Zechariah was the last person in the Old Testament known to deal with angels, and Zacharias the priest is the first in the New Testament. Zacharias was faithfully carrying out his priestly duty before God in his appointed turn.

It was his week of service, and he was on duty. Even though his own family had not been built up with children, he still carefully did the work assigned to him that day. Even when we have not yet received the mercies we long for, we must keep doing the duties God has given us. If we stay faithful in our regular service, mercy and comfort may come in time.

During that week, the lot fell to Zacharias to burn incense morning and evening, as other tasks were assigned by lot to other priests. These duties were set by lot so that some priests would not avoid them and others would not take them all for themselves. Since the lot was seen as guided by the Lord, they could receive the assignment as a divine call to the work.

This was not the high priest burning incense on the Day of Atonement, as some have guessed. People have thought that would help them fix the time of our Savior’s birth, but the text makes it clear that this was the daily burning of incense at the altar of incense (Luke 1:11), which was in the temple (Luke 1:9), not in the Most Holy Place, where the high priest alone entered.

The Jews say that no priest burned incense twice in his whole life, because there were so many priests, or at least not more than once in a week. It is very likely that this happened on the Sabbath, because a large crowd was present (Luke 1:10), and that usually was not the case on a weekday. In this way, God often gives special honor to his own day.

If Dr. Lightfoot is right, using the Jewish calendar, that Abijah’s division served on the seventeenth day of the third month, Sivan, which matches part of May and part of June, then it is worth noticing that the Scripture readings in the synagogues that day fit very well with what was happening in the temple. The law of the Nazarites (Numbers 6) and the story of Samson’s birth (Judges 13) matched the moment well.

While Zechariah was burning incense in the temple, the whole crowd of people was praying outside, in Luke 1:10. Dr. Lightfoot says that at the hour of prayer there were always priests of the serving division in the temple, and if it was the Sabbath, also those who had served the week before. There were Levites under the priests, and the men of station, as the rabbis called them, who represented the people by laying their hands on the sacrifices. Many others also came out of devotion and left their work for that time to be present in God’s worship. All of them together made a large crowd, especially on Sabbaths and feast days.

They then turned to prayer in silence, since their voices were not heard, and a bell told them that the priest had gone in to burn incense. Here we should notice several things. First, the true Israel of God has always been a praying people, and prayer is the main act by which we honor God, receive his help, and keep fellowship with him.

Second, even when outward ceremonies were in full force, like this burning of incense, inward and spiritual duties were still required along with them, and these were the main concern. David knew that when he was far from the altar, his prayer could be heard without incense, because it could rise before God like incense (Psalm 141:2). But when he stood around the altar, the incense could not be accepted without prayer, any more than the shell can be accepted without the kernel.

Third, it is not enough for us to be in the place where God is worshiped if our hearts do not join the worship and go along with the minister in every part of it. If he burns the incense well, with a fitting, wise, and lively prayer, but we are not praying with him at the same time, what good will it do us?

Fourth, all the prayers we offer to God in his courts are acceptable and fruitful only because of the incense of Christ’s intercession in heaven. This seems to be the image behind (Revelation 8:1), (Revelation 8:3), and (Revelation 8:4). There we read of silence in heaven, as there was in the temple, for half an hour, while the people were quietly lifting their hearts to God in prayer. We also read of an angel, the angel of the covenant, offering much incense with the prayers of all the saints before the throne.

We cannot expect any share in Christ’s intercession if we do not pray, and pray in spirit, and keep on praying. Nor can we expect even our best prayers to be accepted and answered with peace except through the mediation of Christ, who lives forever and keeps interceding for us. Mediation means acting as a go-between, bringing God and sinners together.

2. While Zechariah was engaged in this service, he was honored by a messenger sent from heaven, an angel of the Lord appearing to him (Luke 1:11). Some have noticed that we never read of an angel appearing in the temple with a message from God, except to Zechariah. Their thought is that God had other ways of making his will known there, such as the Urim and Thummim, and by a still small voice from between the cherubim. But in the second temple the ark and the oracle were missing, so when a special message had to be sent to a priest in the temple, an angel was used.

This also fit the opening of the gospel, because the law had also been given largely through angels. We often read of angelic appearances in the Gospels and Acts. Yet the goal of both the law and the gospel, once brought to fullness, was to establish a more spiritual way for God and man to have fellowship.

The angel stood on the right side of the altar of incense, on its north side, Dr. Lightfoot says, and on Zechariah’s right hand. Compare this with (Zechariah 3:1), where Satan stands at the right hand of Joshua the high priest to oppose him. Here, however, Zechariah had a good angel standing there to encourage him. Some think the angel came out from the Most Holy Place and then stood at the right side of the altar.

3. This made a deep impression on Zechariah (Luke 1:12). When he saw the angel, he was startled and afraid. He was troubled, and fear fell on him. Though he was righteous before God and blameless in his conduct, he still could not help being shaken at the sight of one whose face and glory showed that he was more than human.

Since sin entered the world, the human mind has not been able to bear the glory of such revelations, and conscience is afraid that such messengers bring bad news. Even Daniel could not endure it (Daniel 10:8). For that reason, God usually speaks to us through men like ourselves, whose fear does not overwhelm us.

III. The angel’s message to him is given in Luke 1:13. Angels usually began their messages with the words, “Do not be afraid.” Perhaps Zechariah had never burned incense before. Since he was a very serious and conscientious man, we may suppose he was carefully trying to do it well. Then, when he saw the angel, he may have feared that he had come to rebuke him for some mistake. But the angel said, “Do not be afraid. I have no bad news from heaven. Be calm, so you can receive what I have to say with a steady spirit.”

Then we come to the message itself: the prayers Zechariah had often made would now be answered in peace. “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard.”

If Zacharias means his earlier prayer for a son to support his family, then it was a prayer he had made long before. He and Elisabeth had likely stopped expecting a child, and they had probably also stopped praying for one. Like Moses, they had enough and no longer spoke to God about that matter (Deuteronomy 3:26). Yet God now looks far back to those old prayers, just as he did for Isaac and his wife (Genesis 25:21).

The lesson is clear, prayers offered in faith are kept in heaven. They are not forgotten, even when the answer does not come right away. Prayers made when we were young, as we entered life, may be answered when we are old and near the end of life. If Zacharias means the prayers he was offering then, while he burned incense, they were likely the prayers required by his priestly work, for Israel’s good and for the promised Messiah and his kingdom. The angel’s message would then mean, “Your prayer is now heard, because your wife will soon conceive the one who will prepare the Messiah’s way.”

Some Jewish writers said that when a priest burned incense, he prayed for the salvation of the whole world, and now that prayer would be answered. Or the angel may mean it more generally, “Your present prayers, and all your prayers, are accepted by God and have come up as a memorial before him,” as the angel said to Cornelius when he found him praying (Acts 10:30-31). The sign that God has accepted Zacharias is that Elisabeth will bear a son. It is deeply comforting for praying people to know that their prayers are heard, and mercies are twice sweet when they come in answer to prayer.

He will have a son in his old age, by Elisabeth his wife, who had long been unable to bear children. His birth would be close to miraculous, and that would help prepare people to receive and believe the completely miraculous virgin birth of Christ. The angel tells him to name the child John, the Hebrew name Johanan, which means “gracious.” Priests were to ask God to be gracious (Malachi 1:9), and to bless the people in that hope (Numbers 6:25). Zacharias was praying for such mercy, and the angel tells him that his prayer is heard. In token of that answer, he must call the child “Grace” in the sense that “The Lord will be gracious” (Isaiah 30:18-19).

This son will bring joy to his family and relatives (Luke 1:14). He will be another Isaac, a child of laughter, and some think that is partly reflected in the name John. He will be a welcome child. Zacharias himself will have joy and gladness. Long-waited mercies are all the sweeter when they finally come. The angel is saying, in effect, “Your son will be such a blessing that you will have no cause to fear at his birth, as many parents do when they know what their children may become. You will be able to rejoice in him with confidence.”

Many others will also rejoice at his birth, all the family’s close relations and friends, because the child will bring honor and comfort to the household (Luke 1:58). All good people will be glad that such a godly couple as Zacharias and Elisabeth have a son, because they will give him a careful upbringing. It may also be that many will rejoice by a kind of holy instinct, as a sign of the joyful days the gospel will bring.

This son will be specially favored by heaven and a great blessing on earth. The honor of having a son is small compared with the honor of having such a son. He will be great in the sight of the Lord. That is real greatness, not the kind the world prizes. God will keep him close to his service and send him on his errands, and that will make him truly honorable. He will be a prophet, even more than a prophet, and for that reason as great as any man ever born of a woman (Matthew 11:11). He will live quietly, away from public notice, and when he appears before people, it will be in humble circumstances. Yet he will be great in God’s eyes.

He will also be a Nazarite, meaning one set apart to God and kept from anything that defiles. In keeping with that calling, he must drink neither wine nor strong drink, or perhaps neither old wine nor new, since the phrase likely refers to intoxicating drink of some kind. Like Samson by God’s command (Judges 13:7) and Samuel by his mother’s vow (1 Samuel 1:11), he will be a Nazarite for life. Scripture speaks of it as a special mercy when God raised up sons as prophets and young men as Nazarites (Amos 2:11). Samuel and John the Baptist were both trained this way, showing that those who will serve God greatly must learn self-denial and restraint. They must turn away from bodily pleasures and keep their minds from anything that clouds or unsettles them.

He will also be fully fitted for the great work he will be called to do. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb, and this will become clear as soon as that can be seen. Those who would be filled with the Holy Spirit must be sober, temperate, and moderate in their use of wine and strong drink, because drunkenness does not fit with the Spirit’s work (Ephesians 5:18). It is possible for infants to be worked on by the Holy Spirit even in the womb. John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit then, and the first sign of it was that he leaped for joy in his mother’s womb when the Savior drew near. Later it became clear that he had been sanctified very early.

God had promised to pour out his Spirit on the children of believers (Isaiah 44:3), and their early turning to God is the fruit of that promise (Isaiah 44:4-5). Who then can forbid water so that such children should not be baptized, if for all we know they have received the Holy Spirit as well as we have, and have the beginnings of grace planted in their hearts (Acts 10:47)?

He will help bring many souls to God and prepare them to receive the gospel of Christ (Luke 1:16-17). He will be sent to the children of Israel, the Jewish nation, to whom the Messiah was first sent, and not to the Gentiles. He will serve the whole nation, not just the priestly family, even though he himself belonged to that family.

He will go before the Lord their God, meaning before the Messiah. The Messiah was not to be a king only in the usual earthly sense, a political ruler for one nation. He was to be their Lord and their God, ruling and defending them in a spiritual way, by working on their hearts. Thomas understood this better when he said to Christ, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28), than Nathanael did when he said, “Rabbi, you are the King of Israel” (John 1:49). John would go a little before him, to announce his coming and prepare people to receive him.

He would go in the spirit and power of Elijah. That means, first, he would be a man like Elijah and do work like Elijah did. Like Elijah, he would preach repentance and reform to a very corrupt and sinful age. Like Elijah, he would be bold and zealous in rebuking sin, even in high places, and would be hated and persecuted for it by a Herod and his Herodias, just as Elijah was by Ahab and Jezebel. He would also be carried along in his work by divine power, and that power would make his ministry greatly successful.

Just as Elijah went before the writing prophets of the Old Testament and, in a sense, introduced that part of God’s dealings with Israel, so John the Baptist went before Christ and his apostles. He introduced the gospel age by preaching its basic call, “Repent,” with the kingdom of heaven in view. Second, he would be the very person Malachi had spoken of under the name of Elijah (Malachi 4:5), the one to come before the day of the Lord. The angel does not mean Elijah the Tishbite, as the Septuagint wrongly suggested to support Jewish traditions, but a prophet with Elijah’s spirit and power.

He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will move their hearts to receive the Messiah and welcome him, by waking them up to their sin and to a desire for righteousness. Anything that turns us away from sin, as John’s preaching and baptism did, also turns us toward Christ as our Lord and our God. Those who, by grace, are brought to throw off the rule of sin, the world, and the flesh, will soon be ready to take Christ’s yoke on themselves.

In this way, he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. This means the Jews will be turned toward the Gentiles, and the deep prejudice Jews had against Gentiles will be weakened. The gospel did this as far as it spread, and John the Baptist began it. He came as a witness so that all might believe through him. He baptized and taught Roman soldiers as well as Jewish Pharisees, and he corrected the pride of Jews who boasted that Abraham was their father. He told them that God could raise up children for Abraham from stones (Matthew 3:9), which would help cure their hostility toward the Gentiles.

Dr. Lightfoot notes that the prophets often speak of the Gentile church as children to the Jewish church (Isaiah 54:5-6, 13; 60:4, 9; 62:5; 66:12). When Jewish believers in Christ joined in fellowship with Gentile believers, then the hearts of the fathers were turned to the children. He will also turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. That is, through the gospel, those now disobedient, especially the Gentiles, will be brought to the faith of Christ, here called the wisdom of the just, together with believing Jews. Or it may mean that he will turn the hearts of fathers and children together, old and young alike, bringing people of every age to true religion.

This would work a great reform in the Jewish nation. It would move them away from a ritual, traditional religion that had satisfied them, and bring them to solid, serious godliness. The result would be the end of enmities and quarrels. Those who were divided would be brought together in his baptism and would become more reconciled to one another. This agrees with Josephus’s account of John the Baptist, who says that John was a good man who taught the Jews to practice virtue, to live in devotion to God and righteousness toward one another, and to gather together in baptism. Josephus also says that the people flocked to him and greatly enjoyed his teaching.

So John turned the hearts of fathers and children to God and to one another by turning the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. True religion is the wisdom of righteous people, unlike the wisdom of the world. It is both wise and right to be religious, because religion has both justice and prudence in it. It is also possible for those who have been unbelieving and disobedient to be turned to the wisdom of the just, because divine grace can overcome the greatest ignorance and prejudice.

The great purpose of the gospel is to bring people back to God and draw them closer to one another, and John the Baptist was sent for that very task. The repeated mention of turning people may also allude to Elijah’s name, which some think means “converter,” one who was used greatly in conversion work. So the Elijah of the New Testament is said to turn many to the Lord their God.

By this work he will make ready a people prepared for the Lord. He will dispose people’s minds to receive Christ’s teaching, so they may be ready for the comfort of his coming. All who are to belong to the Lord and find happiness in him must first be prepared for him. We must be prepared by grace in this life for glory in the next, by the terrors of the law for the comforts of the gospel, and by the spirit of bondage for the Spirit of adoption, that is, the Spirit who gives us full acceptance as God’s children.

Nothing prepares people for Christ more directly than receiving and submitting to the message of repentance. When sin becomes truly heavy to us, Christ becomes very precious to us.

He heard everything the angel said, and he should have bowed his head and worshiped the Lord, saying, “Let it be done to your servant according to your word.” But that is not what happened. We are told first what his unbelief said (Luke 1:18): “How can I know this?” This was not a humble request for help to believe, but a sharp objection to what he had been told, as if he meant, “I will never be able to believe that.”

He could not have missed that an angel was speaking to him. The message also matched Old Testament prophecies, so it carried strong proof on its own. There were many examples in the Old Testament of people having children in old age, yet he still could not believe he would have this promised child. He looked at himself and his wife, who had long been barren and was now very old, and decided it was impossible.

So he wanted a sign before he would believe. But the angel’s appearance, which had been rare in the church for a long time, was already a sign. The message came in the temple, where God gave his word, and where Zacharias had good reason to think no evil angel would be allowed to enter. It also came while he was praying and offering incense. And above all, he should have trusted the great truth that God is all-powerful, and nothing is impossible with him.

Still, when he looked too much at his own body and his wife’s, he staggered at the promise (Romans 4:19, 20). He did not act like a true son of Abraham. His unbelief then had to be silenced, and he himself was silenced for it. The angel first stopped his objections by declaring his authority. Since Zacharias asked, “How can I know this?” the angel answered, “You will know by this: I am Gabriel” (Luke 1:19).

The angel, as it were, signed the message with his own name and said, “Take my word for it.” Angels sometimes refused to give their names, as in the case of Manoah and his wife, but this angel named himself plainly. Gabriel means “the power of God” or “the mighty one of God,” showing that the God who sent him was able to carry out what he promised. The name would also remind Zacharias of the messages Gabriel had once brought to Daniel about the coming Messiah (Daniel 8:16; 9:21). It was as if he said, “I am the same messenger sent then, and I am sent now for the same purpose.”

Gabriel is the angel who stands in the presence of God, serving near his throne. In the Persian court, the chief officers were described this way, as those who saw the king’s face (Esther 1:14). So Gabriel tells Zacharias, “Though I am speaking to you here, I still stand before God. I know his eye is on me, and I dare not say anything beyond what I was sent to say. But I do declare that I was sent to bring you these good news, and you should have received them gladly.”

Then the angel stopped his mouth in a second way, by using his power: “You will be silent, so you cannot object any more” (Luke 1:20). If Zacharias wanted a sign to support his faith, he would get one that was also a punishment for his unbelief. He would not be able to speak until the promise was fulfilled (Luke 1:20). He would be both unable to speak and, likely, unable to hear as well, since the same word can mean both, and his friends later made signs to him (Luke 1:62), just as he made signs to them (Luke 1:22).

In striking him dumb, God dealt with him justly, because he had spoken against God’s word. This should make us admire God’s patience and forbearance toward us. We have often spoken in ways that dishonor him, yet we have not been struck dumb like Zacharias, and we would have been if God had dealt with us only according to our sins. At the same time, God dealt kindly and tenderly with him. First, this kept him from speaking more distrustful and unbelieving words. If a person thinks evil and will not keep his mouth shut, God will do it. It is better not to speak at all than to speak wickedly. Second, this very punishment helped confirm his faith, because being unable to speak gave him time to think more deeply. If the rebukes we suffer for sin lead us to trust God’s word more fully, then those rebukes are doing us good.