Monday, May 4, 2009

Week 19 : Luke 1:1 - 2:20 (Part 1)

In coming to the Gospel of Luke, we should start by considering what sort of person Luke was, and how it defines his approach. According to Luke 1:2, he was not an immediate contemporary of the Lord Jesus; instead, he was a companion and coworker with Paul on several of the apostle's ministry journeys (Acts 16:10-17; 20:5-21:18; 27:1-28:15). His account may be considered to be as much an expression of the apostle Paul as Mark's gospel was an expression of the apostle Peter.

According to Colossians 4:11 and 14, Luke was a Gentile physician, and he was writing to Theophilus, most likely also a Gentile, who occupied some official position within the Roman Empire. So he was a Gentile writing to another Gentile, based on careful research done from primary sources.

Whereas Matthew's gospel presents Jesus as the King-Saviour, and Mark's as the Slave-Saviour, Luke presents Jesus as the Man-Saviour, the One who is both the eternal God and a perfect, normal, genuine man.

Chapter one reveals to us the conception of this Man-Saviour. Luke 1:35 shows us that unlike every other man and woman ever born, Jesus was not conceived of a man and a woman; instead, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit. This is a most astounding fact. This conception brought the eternal uncreated divine essence together with the created human essence, in the womb of a human virgin. These two essences weren't just added together, they were mingled together. We should be very clear, this did not produce a third essence, one which was neither divine nor human, this thought is utterly heretical. Although the Lord has the two essences, He is still a complete person - He is both God and man. We may even call Him a God-man.

As a God-man/Man-Saviour, He possessed both the divine attributes and the human virtues. The divine attributes are related to what God is. When we say, "God is love", or "God is truth", or "God is righteousness", those are the divine attributes. God is not just loving, He is love itself, He is truth itself. Humanity on the other hand, does not have these attributes; nevertheless, we do have the virtues of love, and truth, and so on.

What the Lord did not possess, though, was our sinful nature. Although John 1:14 says that the Word became flesh, Romans 8:3 tells us that the Lord came in the likeness of the flesh of sin. So although He was a man outwardly, inwardly He was God, without any of the taint of man's sinful nature, and His divine attributes were fully expressed and manifested through His human virtues.

No comments: