Introduction

Luke 4:[17] And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

[18] “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives

and recovering of sight to the blind,

to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

[19] to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

[20] And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. [21] And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

This is Christ’s announcement of His earthly mission.  What does He mean by “fulfilled”?

Here Jesus is citing Isaiah 61:1-2.  What we’re being asked to take away from Jesus’ conclusion in v21 is this:

• The Spirit of God is “upon” Jesus (see Lk 3:22)
• God has anointed Jesus (i.e. making Him His servant. See Lk 3:21-22 for this anointing.)
• God sent Jesus to proclaim liberty to the captives and the recovery of sight to the blind (see Jn 8:35-36 and Jn 9:11)
• God sent Jesus to free those who are oppressed (see Jn 8:36, Mt 7:8)
• God sent Jesus to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, which is Isaiah’s reference to a Jubilee year when servants and property are freed. Many conclude that this is a symbol for Jesus’ primary theme of the revelation of the Kingdom of God (on earth as it is in heaven – see Mt 6:9-13).

This is what Jesus is claiming for Himself in the synagogue in Nazareth and that his Apostles confirm.  But is this the entire list of things Jesus was here to fulfill?   I think we will find there was much, much more.  To see the whole scope of Jesus’ commission, we’re going to have to review what God sought from and for His people, Israel, from their beginning.

God’s Desire for Israel and Setting Israel’s Expectations

Israel wasn’t a “people” until their sojourn in Egypt.  Before that, the Bible recognizes their ancestors: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Each received promises of a land for their descendants to occupy.  Abraham additionally received God’s promise that his descendants would (Gen 12:3) “… and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”, and later (Gen 22:18) “and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”

So somebody in Abraham’s progeny is going to bless all the earth’s families and nations.  Normal readers of these promises assume that they are to be implemented via Abraham’s offspring, which turn out to be Israel, the descendants of Jacob, Abraham’s grandson.

What else is God expecting from Israel?  For this, we’ll have to parse the Pentateuch and Prophets.

Exodus

 In Exodus 19:5-6, God tells Moses to tell Israel:

[5] Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; [6] and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

God wanted Israel to be His priests, His mediators between Himself and the rest of the world, proclaiming His name, calling the world to obedience to Him.  But it went the other way.  Israel succumbed to the world and its worship of other “gods”, doing nothing to recommend YHWH to their neighbors.

Deuteronomy

I’ve written about God’s desire for His people as communicated through Moses in his book of Deuteronomy here: Listen, Learn, Keep, Do.  The capsule summary of this, paraphrased, is: “Listen to My commands (i.e. diligently listen to Me), Learn My commands (i.e. understand them so that you can apply them in your life), Keep(/Guard) My commands (i.e. don’t forget or change them), and Do My commands”, repeated in variations in dozens of verses.  The word here translated as “listen” is the same word that introduces Israel’s Shema: Deut 6:4-5

[4] “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. [5] You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

(Our English Bibles frequently translate this term and its cognates as “obey”.  That’s not what it means in Deuteronomy.  The idea is more of [the antique English term] “harken”; or “take notice of”, or “pay particular attention to”.) 
But Israel didn’t “learn” God’s commands to apply them, even if they did, in fact, “hear” them.  And they surely didn’t “keep” God’s commands.  They added a ton of new strictures to them in the form of the entire corpus of Priestly rules written into the Pentateuch (present in each of its books) to legislate and legitimize the Temple cult’s operations.

So we have a second unmet desire of God.  Not only weren’t they a nation of priests, they didn’t obey.

Isaiah

Isaiah is an extremely complex and expansive book.  In it, the author prophesies both destruction for Israel and their eventual redemption (mainly from Babylon).  The condemnation is in the form of a litany of charges against Israel for failing to meet God’s covenant conditions.  In terms of the charges that Isaiah levies against Israel, there’s this: Isaiah 3:8-11

and Judah has fallen,

because their speech and their deeds are against the LORD,

defying his glorious presence.

[9] For the look on their faces bears witness against them;

they proclaim their sin like Sodom;

they do not hide it.

Woe to them!

For they have brought evil on themselves.

[10] Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them,

for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.

[11] Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him,

So God, through Isaiah, is clearly distinguishing His judgment on them based on their faithfulness to Him.  However, He also elsewhere extends an olive branch of mercy and redemption on the surrounding “nations”.

For example, we have Is 56:6-8:

[6] “And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,

to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD,

and to be his servants,

everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,

and holds fast my covenant—

[7] these I will bring to my holy mountain,

and make them joyful in my house of prayer;

their burnt offerings and their sacrifices

will be accepted on my altar;

for my house shall be called a house of prayer

for all peoples.”

and also Is 66:18-19:

[18] “For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory, [19] and I will set a sign among them. And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations.

So yes, Isaiah prophesied that Israel would return from its exile in Babylon to their homeland.  But he’s beyond imploring them to live in accordance with God’s commands.  For them, he only issues condemnation for their apostasy that led (will lead) to their exile.

The larger issue Isaiah introduces is God’s intention to use the nations to spread His name and glory.  This is new.  Apparently, God has modified His expectation for the people of Israel to be His ministers to the nations.  Rather, He now divulges a plan to enlist the nations themselves in promoting His name, significantly expanding the subject of His plan of redemption of all things to Himself.

The other enormous expectation that Isaiah promoted is that of a future Davidic Messiah for Israel.  Israel’s interpretation of the stories they heard of a coming Messiah was of a powerful figure who would lead Israel not only spiritually and politically, as its King from the line of David, but also as its military leader marshaling the forces of God to overwhelm Israel’s persecutors.

Throughout his book, Isaiah periodically inserts poetic passages termed “Servant Songs”.  Most experts agree that there are four such songs.  The role of an expected Messiah can be read into each of them.  But the song in which it is simply impossible to miss the Messianic significance is the fourth: Is 52:13 – Is 53:12. As an expectation-creating prophecy for the future, it is worth reading again:

[13] Behold, my servant shall act wisely;

he shall be high and lifted up,

and shall be exalted.

[14] As many were astonished at you—

his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,

and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—

[15] so shall he sprinkle many nations.

Kings shall shut their mouths because of him,

for that which has not been told them they see,

and that which they have not heard they understand.

Chapter 53

[53:1] Who has believed what he has heard from us?

And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

[2] For he grew up before him like a young plant,

and like a root out of dry ground;

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

and no beauty that we should desire him.

[3] He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

[4] Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

[5] But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

[6] All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

[7] He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth.

[8] By oppression and judgment he was taken away;

and as for his generation, who considered

that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people?

[9] And they made his grave with the wicked

and with a rich man in his death,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

[10] Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;

he has put him to grief;

when his soul makes an offering for guilt,

he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;

the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

[11] Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;

by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,

make many to be accounted righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities.

[12] Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,

because he poured out his soul to death

and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,

and makes intercession for the transgressors.

I’m sure Isaiah stunned his audience with this portrayal of their coming Messiah; hardly the image of a powerful military commander and King.  But for those who were paying attention, they were notified here of their Messiah’s role in “sprinkling” (i.e. purifying) the nations about which Isaiah was to elaborate in the coming chapters.

It must have been particularly troubling to them that it was being prophesied that God, YHWH, was the One Who was going to “crush Him”.  And, in the final stanza, we get the hint that it is this Messiah who is going to intercede to redeem the apostate of Israel back to their God.

God didn’t abandon His love for the people of the nation of Israel in Isaiah.  He continued to offer them redemption even following their exile.  But He did begin to prepare them for a different future than they had expected before their exile.

Jeremiah

The prophet Jeremiah was, like Isaiah, quite strident in his criticism of the people’s apostasy.  Jeremiah’s focus was Judah and Jerusalem as the northern tribes had been exiled by Assyria a century earlier.

He recites God’s indictment against the unfaithfulness of Judah in Je 13:10-11.   They had broken God’s covenant.  But God didn’t abandon them – even these unfaithful.  Instead, He reassures them that they will return to their land: Je 29:10-14:

[10] “For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. [11] For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. [12] Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. [13] You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. [14] I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

This is an offer of redemption for the soon-to-be-exiled Judahites.  It’s interesting to note Jeremiah’s formulation of the offer: you will find me “when you seek me with all your heart.”  This sounds very similar to Deuteronomy and all of its admonitions to love the LORD “with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength(/’everything’)”[i].

Jeremiah is also one of the primary sources of the prophecy of God’s New Covenant.  This Covenant isn’t about what God expects of Israel; rather it is a unilateral covenant ratified exclusively by God.  Je 31:33-34:

[33] For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [34] And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

God introduces this covenant through Jeremiah as being made with “the house of Israel and the house of Judah” (v31).  But then He explains the effects of the covenant (v33) as specifically for the “house of Israel”.  Since it was introduced as for both Israel and Judah, it is likely that here Jeremiah is simply reverting to the original definition of Israel, as the collection of the twelve tribes.

Again, this doesn’t establish an expectation for devotion or repentance or a certain behavior by the Israelites.  However, it does establish an expectation for the implementation of the prophecy.

Summary of Future Expectations

These are the behaviors God desired for Israel, His people, or their expectations for their future His prophets prophesied for them.

1. They would be a nation of priests, mediating between God and the nations.
2. They would listen to His commands; learn His commands; guard His commands (from corruption or change); and do His commands.
3. They would love God with all of their heart, all of their soul, and all of their ‘everything’.
4. The Israelites would care for the orphans, the widows, the sojourners, and the Levites.
5. God would gather all nations and tongues (Gentiles) and send them to declare His glory to the nations.
6. He will gather foreigners who seek Him (Gentiles) to minister to the nations and to worship Him in Jerusalem
7. They would return from exile (Babylon) to their homeland.
8. They would have God’s law written on their hearts; they would all know God; God would forgive their iniquity and remember their sins no more.
9. Their Messiah would come in meekness, be unnoticeable, be crushed by God, be cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

What God did not want from Israel He shares through several of His prophets.  (I’ve written about the major ones here:  Did God Want A Temple, Sacrifices or a Monarchy?).

The people did not deliver on God’s initial expectations for them (points 1-4, above), so far as scripture records.  They were given a vision of their future that involved both discipline, in the form of exile and destruction, as well as the offer of redemption when they had returned to their land, by their (suffering) Messiah.

A New Israel

God’s faithfulness to His Covenant of Faith with Abraham – that Abraham’s “seed” would be a blessing to all the families and nations of the earth – demanded that He follow through.  But with Israel turning her back on God’s desires for them, how could He do that?

The answer had already been given to Israel/Judah through their prophets.  They would be offered redemption from their Messiah, a suffering Servant who would be stricken for their iniquities from which, by faith, their sins would be forgiven, as prophesied.

The New Testament scholar NT Wright sums up this conclusion in his book “The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’ Crucifixion”[ii] where he states:

“When some Greeks come looking for Jesus, Jesus comments that when he has been, ‘lifted up from the earth,’ he will ‘draw all people’ to Himself (Jn 12:32)…This line of thought makes sense on the assumption, rooted in Israel’ scriptures, that what God does at last for Israel will have worldwide repercussions. This is the deep theological root of the Gentile mission….an open opportunity. The servant will die for the nation, but will thereby do for the world what Israel was called to do but could not do, setting the nations free from their ancient bondage so that they can now join the single People of God.”

What of Fulfillment of the Law?

There is another divisive controversy concerning Christ’s fulfillment and that is the assertion that He fulfilled “the Law and the prophets” which some interpret to mean “ended” the Law and the prophets.  This conclusion has been a wedge between traditional Christians and Jews for millennia.  But is this what Christ was asserting in the synagogue in Nazareth or His later teachings?

We don’t have to wonder.  Jesus tells us Himself what He was here to fulfill in Luke 24:44-48:

[44] Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” [45] Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, [46] and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, [47] and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. [48] You are witnesses of these things.

But the unmistakable meaning of His words here is: “The Law and the Prophets and the Psalms were full of prophecies of Me.  I have come.  Therefore, these scriptures have been fulfilled.”

There’s nothing here about ending God’s Law.  Obviously, God Himself ended the laws having to do with sacrifice in 70 AD.  And Jesus Himself encouraged us to follow the two “greatest” laws; that of loving God, and loving our neighbors as ourselves, which Paul calls the ‘Law of Christ’ (Gal 6:2).

Now, Paul does say that Christ is “the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Ro 10:4).  But he’s simply saying that the function of Law adherence for the Jews in preserving their covenant standing with YHWH, is no longer effective after Christ.  He’s specifically not saying anything about whether or not one should or should not choose to follow any of the law’s ceremonial prescriptions, e.g. festivals and holy days and kosher, etc. (although he’s quite adamant, again in the sense of obtaining some kind of righteousness before God, concerning circumcision).  And he’s certainly not saying God’s moral laws are no longer applicable.

So this is a debate that we should stop fighting over.

Conclusions

To understand God’s work in human history, we need to follow along with the messages He has left – both for Israel and for ourselves.  A Messiah for Israel was clearly described and prophesied in Isaiah.  Others prophesied of the effects of receiving and trusting in Him.  The prophets portrayed Him as the means of redemption, initially for Israel and later for the world – the nations. 

As prophesied (Is 43:5-7), Israel returned from exile to their homeland.

He became the priest Israel failed to become (Heb 4:14).

He taught and lived out the prescription to adhere to and do God’s commands (Jn 5:19).

He loved His Father with all of His heart, soul, and ‘everything’ (Jn 14:31).

He extended care to widows (Jn 4:7-26), orphans (Mk 9:42), and sojourners (Mt 15:21-28).

Christ commanded His disciples to “make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19).

He gathered Gentiles to declare His glory to the nations (Phl 2:22).

He, through the gift of His Spirit, illumined His followers in the knowledge of God (Eph 1:18,19).

And finally, Messiah suffered (Lk 17:25).

Sadly, Israel rejected their covenant and their prophets, and so rejected their Messiah.  Instead, Messiah (Abraham’s seed) fulfilled Israel’s scriptures, and God’s original expectations for Israel were realized in and through Him.

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[i]  Among the dozens of such admonitions throughout Deuteronomy, perhaps the most recognized appears in the Shema (“listen”) [6:4] “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. [5] You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

[ii] Wright, NT, “The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’ Crucifixion” (pp 211-212), se esp. pp. 241, 248, 279, 290 , 331, 337).