WWUTT 2247 Meeting Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-7)

Luke is very meticulous to write down a Gospel account detailing people and places and things and events so that we can know with confidence this Gospel that we have heard is true when we understand the text.

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Once again, it's Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. Well, in our study of the Gospel of Luke, we come back to our text today, and we'll cover a bigger portion than we looked at yesterday. That was just an overview of Luke, so if you missed out on that, you can listen to yesterday's.

Episode.

I'm going to begin by reading both angelic birth announcements, the announcement of John the Baptist and of Jesus Christ, which we have in Luke 1, verses 1 through 38. Hear the word of the Lord. Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the division of Abijah, and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes.

Of the Lord.

But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years. Now, while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense.

And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him.

But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord, and he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb.

And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.

And Zechariah said to the angel, How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years. And the angel answered him, I am Gabriel, I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you, and to bring you this good news.

And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time. And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple, and when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple, and he kept making signs to them, and remained mute.

And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home. After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary.

And he came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bear a son, and you shall call his name.

Jesus.

He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

And Mary said to the angel, How will this be, since I am a virgin? And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God.

And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.

And the angel departed from her. So there you have the two angelic birth announcements, one regarding John the Baptist and the other regarding Jesus Christ, both made by the same angel, the angel Gabriel, who was the angel that appeared to Daniel in the book of Daniel.

So this angel, Gabriel, has been around for a long time. So he says to Zechariah, while Zechariah is serving in the temple, that Elizabeth is going to be with child. And this, of course, is going to be the forerunner to the coming of the Christ.

John the Baptist who will prepare the way. And then shortly thereafter, a few months transpire, and the angel appears to Mary in Galilee, a little town called Nazareth, and says that she is going to be with child.

And even though she is a virgin, now Elizabeth was barren, but John the Baptist was not conceived miraculously. He was naturally conceived, as a man and woman do. With Jesus, though, he was conceived of the Holy Spirit.

So he was not conceived of the seed of man, and therefore would have been born in the line of Adam, in which Adam would have been his federal head. But since Jesus is the last Adam, since he is going to fulfill all that Adam could not accomplish, then just as Adam had no father, so Jesus does not have a biological father.

Either.

He is conceived of the Holy Spirit so that he is sinless from his conception, and then born in sinlessness, born holy, as the angel announced that he would be, then he would live sinlessly in obedience to the heavenly father, and would become the pure and spotless lamb who would sacrifice himself for our sins.

And we'll talk more about that as we continue through this narrative. Today, let me come back to the introduction we looked at yesterday. I'll look at this again briefly, and then we'll come to the narrative where the angel Gabriel announces to Zechariah about this miraculous birth that is going to happen for him and his wife, Elizabeth.

So in Luke 1, verses 1 through 4, and we looked at this yesterday, we'll catch a few more details today. Luke begins by saying, inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us.

It's interesting that Luke uses that word many, and it could be that there were many others that had attempted to write something of a gospel than just Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Now, at this particular time, I hold a minority view here.

Take it for what it's worth. We'll talk about it some more when we get to the gospel of John. But I actually believe John was written after the destruction of the temple in AD 70, and I can explain that a little bit more sometime later.

But Matthew, Mark, and Luke were definitely written beforehand. Matthew, as I said yesterday, was the earliest gospel, about 12 years after Jesus had ascended into heaven. Both Luke and Mark are written in the decade of the 60s AD.

Now there may have been many others who attempted to write something of a gospel account, and we don't have record of that. We will never uncover that, because it was not the Lord's will that those things would be preserved.

I talked yesterday about the existence of the Q document, stuff like that. I don't think anything like that existed. But there were some other traditions, perhaps, some other stories surrounding Jesus that people may have written down or shared as part of an oral tradition, and never were written in as concise a way as we have the gospel accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, nor were they written in such a way that really was complete, like completely observing the ministry of Jesus.

Matthew starts with the birth narrative just like Luke does, although Matthew doesn't include as many details as Luke does. But with these three gospels, which we call the synoptic gospels, you have a more complete picture of Jesus, what he did, what he said, what he accomplished during his earthly ministry.

And it could have been that any of those others who were attempting to write down things that Jesus said and did, it just wasn't as complete a picture. This is where I think the pericope adultery comes from.

So the narrative about the woman that's caught in adultery and is brought before Jesus, and the Pharisees say, what should we do with a woman such as this? That's a narrative that we find in John 8. Now it doesn't belong in John 8.

John did not write it. And your Bible should tell you that. There should be some sort of marker in there that will say, this text right here, these 12 verses were not in the earliest manuscripts. It didn't come from John.

As a matter of fact, the pericope adultery at one point in church history appeared in the gospel of Luke. So what does that indicate to you? That this was an oral tradition of some kind that was floating around and looking for a home, but it was not written by any of the gospel writers.

Did it happen? It probably did. It is likely that that account indeed took place, but it was just a short written account. It was just an anecdote about something that happened during Jesus' ministry.

It was never written as part of a broader gospel narrative. And so it was kind of a beloved oral tradition. People liked it. Yeah, this is neat. In the life of Jesus, we ought to put this somewhere. And so somewhere in the process of copying manuscripts, it ends up in John's gospel.

But it really messes up the narrative. It actually messes up the flow of John. Sometime when you're studying John, you ought to read through John 7 until you get to the end, the last verse in John 7 where it says, these next 12 verses here were not in the earliest manuscripts, and skip, skip the pericope adultery, and pick up again in John 8, I think it's verse 11.

So pick up reading from there, as though the pericope adultery is not there at all. When I say pericope adultery, it's the account of this woman who was caught in adultery being brought to Jesus. So just skip over it and keep reading, and you will see how John flows much better without that there.

It really messes up the flow. Because John didn't write it. It didn't happen at that particular location. That's just where it ended up in the text. For whatever reason, some monk sometime over 1 ,500 years ago had decided that that needed to be the spot where it was going to find itself, find a place in the gospels.

But like I said, so there were many others who were probably writing things down and recording what Jesus had done in his earthly ministry. Luke is saying that he's going to write some things down based on eyewitness accounts that's going to provide a more complete picture of the gospel that has been proclaimed by the.

Apostles.

So this isn't narrative bits and fragments. Luke is going to present a complete account, a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, he says. So among us would be the disciples and even the disciples of the apostles.

So this is more of like an apostolic tradition that Luke is attempting to write down. Things accomplished among us that would have been the spreading of this gospel message to the world. Those things accomplished may have been alluding more toward what Luke was going to write down in Acts.

And that's part two, which is also addressed to Theophilus. So in verse two, he says, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us. Now that sounds very familiar.

That actually sounds like something that we read in Hebrews chapter two. So this is one of those evidences that I think hints to the fact that Hebrews may have been written by Luke. It's Paul's theology, very much Paul's teaching that we read throughout Hebrews.

But the style, the manner in which these things are said, the voice, you might call it, sounds like Luke. It sounds like what we read in Luke and in Acts. That's the way Hebrews sounds. The apostle Paul would never say that the gospel was delivered to him by someone.

It came to him from the Lord. But Hebrews 2 says that it was a tradition that was delivered by men. So that could not have come from Paul. That would not have been Paul's testimony. So Hebrews 2 .1, let me read this for you.

Therefore, we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from.

It.

For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

That sounds like Luke. That sounds somewhat like what we're reading here at the very beginning. It was attested to us by those who heard, just as Paul says, or it's just as Paul. See, I'm going to, I'm probably going to make that mistake several times.

But just as Luke says here that the ministers of the word have delivered these things to.

Us.

So it seemed good to me also, having followed all these things closely for some time past to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus. Now I mentioned yesterday that Theophilus may have been a pastor or an elder.

He may have been the leader of a church in his home. Like maybe the church met in his house. That's still very much a possibility. But the fact that Luke calls him most excellent Theophilus means that he probably had some sort of authoritative government kind of position.

He may have been a very successful governor in that he had a large home and could host the church in his house. But to call him most excellent would be a title of prestige. It's more than just saying, you are my most excellent friend.

I don't know if you've seen the meme of Bill and Ted, you know, the movie from back in the eighties, Bill and Ted's excellent adventure. And somebody had a Bill and Ted saying, we wrote this for you, most excellent Theophilus, you know, as though that was the tone that Luke had now.

Not quite. But it would have been an honorable title that Theophilus held. So a man of great importance, not just among Christians, but even among the people that he lived with and did business with. Verse four, that you may have certainty concerning the things that you have been taught.

So we have factual accounts, people, places, things, events, so on and so forth that are written down here in Luke that we may have confidence in what we have been told is the truth. It is the gospel for everyone who believes will be saved for those who have put their trust in Jesus Christ.

The emphasis being all about knowing the savior here in the gospel of Luke. Now I spent all that time still mostly on that introductory sentence, but let's get a little bit into the birth narrative of John the Baptist here.

Zechariah and Elizabeth in the Days of Herod

So in verse five, in the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah. So right away, we're getting into Luke laying out some facts, laying out some times for us so that we can have a good idea as to when these things took place in the days of Herod.

Now that's not terribly specific because Herod reigned for about 40 years. He was appointed to king of Judea by the Romans in 40 BC, and he would have ruled Judea, Galilee, Samaria, Perea, and Idumea from that time until about 4 BC.

Now I'm going to be skeptical about some of these dates when we get to Luke chapter two, but for the time being, these are the popular dates that are most accepted. So for about 36 years or something like that is how long Herod reigned over Judea.

So that's a pretty broad period of time. It doesn't tell us specifically when in Herod's reign that this happened. But nonetheless, Luke says it's during the days of Herod the Great. And we have this priest who served in the temple.

He was a well-known priest. John the Baptist, by the way, was well-known. This is one of the things that I hated about the way that The Chosen depicted John the Baptist. I mean, it's such an awful show.

I can't even go into all of the details that makes The Chosen so bad. I've barely scratched the surface on some of the videos I've done about it and the questions that Becky and I have answered on the Q &A.

But I hated the way that they depicted John the Baptist. It was so terrible. Everybody thinking that he was just a wacko. And for the most part, a lot of people didn't even know who he was. And that would not have been the case at all.

Zechariah was a well-known priest in the temple. People knew him and his family. And even when the angel announces the birth of John the Baptist here, he talks about how John is going to be great. People are going to know him.

They will flock to him. And we see that concerning John the Baptist. We'll read that some more in the introduction to Luke in these first three chapters. So here, Zechariah, his father, well-known, well-respected among the people, is serving in the temple.

He is of the division of Abijah, it says here in verse 5. Now, there were these priestly divisions that were set up by David. You can read about this in Chronicles. And Abijah was one of these 24 divisions.

There were 24 of them because each division would fulfill the priestly duties in the temple for one week, twice a year. This was how the priestly duties were split up among the priests. So it wasn't left upon like one group of people to have to be doing it all the time.

Everybody was going to get a turn and everyone had an appointed week in which they were going to fulfill their priestly duties. Now, there are some who will take this reference to Zechariah serving in the division of Abijah, and they will try to calculate out exactly when Jesus was born.

I had somebody do this to me just in the past week online. Somebody confronted me and said, we know exactly when Jesus was born and it was not December 25th, and we can calculate that because it is mentioned that Zechariah was serving in the temple in the order of Abijah.

And I know that I'm not going to convince this person, but I just simply and calmly said to him, no, that actually doesn't tell us anything about when Jesus was born for a couple of reasons. Number one, because Zechariah would have served in that position twice a year.

And we don't know when of those two responsibilities or those two weeks that he is given during the year that he would have been fulfilling his priestly duties at this particular point mentioned by Luke.

So that's the first hiccup. The second is that after David had arranged when all of these priests were going to be fulfilling those duties and which week they would be doing it after the exile, and then the return of those priests back to Jerusalem, rebuilding the temple and resetting the order and all that kind of thing, the order was likely shuffled around.

It was not the same order that David had set it in. We don't have any evidence to indicate that it was exactly the same order. So that creates the other problem. We can't take this statement and exactly calculate out when it was that Jesus was born.

As much as there are people that are going to want to say that you can do it because Luke was so meticulous in the way that he recorded these things, it's still just a guess. We don't know exactly for sure when it was, what season it was, even what month it was that Jesus was born in.

I make the argument that December 25th is a real possibility. You could also argue that maybe he was born in the spring, but we'll consider some of those arguments later when we get to chapter two. So in the days of Herod, king of Judea, priest named Zechariah of the division of Abijah, he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron.

So you can see this is a very priestly lineage here. Her name was Elizabeth, and they were both righteous before God. What a wonderful and excellent thing to say about Zechariah and Elizabeth. They loved God.

They were not among the rest of the Jews whose hearts had turned away from the Lord. Remember when we were in Matthew chapter two? I know this was some time ago.

What was this?

Two years ago now that I think we were in Matthew two. But when we were studying in that chapter and the magi come to Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we seen his star in the east and have come to worship him.

The Jews did not know what they were talking about. And everybody in Jerusalem was troubled by the fact that they've showed up. These strangers from a foreign land, a big caravan of them, not just three, but a large group of them traveling together have shown up in Jerusalem, the capital city of Judea, and are asking where the king is born.

What are they talking about? And it took everybody by surprise. And this is reflective of the fact that these people, though they had the prophecies, they had the word of God. They were as sheep without a shepherd.

And they had hearts that proclaimed God and did a lot of religious service and duties, but they were not really for the Lord. This here demonstrates that Zechariah and Elizabeth were for God. They were not only religious in fulfilling the duties and responsibilities that they were given as Jews, but they also loved God and they obeyed his word.

They were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. Zechariah did know God's word and he taught it to others. But it says in verse seven, they had no child because Elizabeth was barren and both were advanced in years.

And it is by God's providence that Elizabeth's womb was closed until this time. And they would be blessed to be a part of this salvation narrative through which God is going to give them a son and that son is going to be the fulfillment of prophecy, preparing the way of the Lord who is to come.

What a great honor that they would be included in this work of salvation that God meant to accomplish and use them in that very purpose. John the Baptist is the one that Jesus said was the greatest of those born among women.

So what does that say about Elizabeth? It says something highly of her as well. Now, each one of us, God has providentially chosen for salvation, but also that we would serve a purpose in what God means to accomplish in the work of salvation, that we would share the message of the gospel with others so that they would come to faith in Jesus Christ and so be saved.

And so we're included in this work as well. We must know the gospel message and we must take it to the world so that others will hear of Jesus Christ who died and rose again so that all who believe in him will not perish, but will be saved and have eternal life.

Let's stop there. We'll come back to our study of Luke tomorrow. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've been reading here, this orderly account, these facts about persons and places and things and events so that we could have confidence in knowing that what we believe is true.

It is attested to by eyewitnesses. We know that God is accomplishing something great through the person and work of Jesus Christ to whom we have been called, that we might worship the Lord in spirit and in truth and also take the message of truth in the spirit of God to the world so that others might believe in him and be saved.

Continue to work these things in our hearts. May we have confidence in them, boldness to share the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's in his name that we pray. Amen.

Gabe is a pastor of Providence Church in Casa Grande, Arizona. For more information about our ministry, visit providencecasagrande .com. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study, When We Understand the Text.