April 6, 2020: ISAIAH 61:1-2 SON & SPIRIT OF HEALING
We continue our reading plan of looking at the unshakeable and Almighty God. In God, we find healing, freedom, and favor in the everlasting and Triune God. Today, we look at Isaiah 61:1-2. It reads:
1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn; (ESV)
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- The inspiration of the Messiah’s ministry
- “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me”
- The two verbs that express the significance of this are “He has anointed me” and “He has sent me.” The image of anointing signifies that He was set apart for this mission and endorsed by God
- The ministry of the Messiah
- Heal the damage due to sin; preach the good news to the poor; heal the brokenhearted; liberate the captives; bring freedom to the bound; judge the world; and comfort all who mourn
Deeper Exposition:
In verse 1 all three Persons of the Trinity are mentioned: the Spirit, the Sovereign Lord, and the Messiah.
Several factors indicate that “Me” refers to the same Servant (i.e. Messiah) as in 42:1; 49:1; 50:4; 52:13: (1) He has received the Lord’s Spirit (compare 42:1). The association of the Holy Spirit with the anointing points to Jesus Christ.[1] After being anointed with oil, Israel’s first two kings, Saul and David, were blessed with the Spirit’s ministry (1 Sam. 10:1, 10; 16:13). Similarly, Christ was anointed by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 3:16–17) to be Israel’s King. The Hebrew word for Messiah (māšîaḥ) means “the Anointed One,” and Christ (christos, from chriō, “to anoint”) is the Greek equivalent of māšîaḥ. (2) Part of this passage (Isa. 61:1–2a) was read by Jesus (Luke 4:18–19) in reference to Himself. Jesus Christ inaugurated His ministry by identifying Himself as this Servant. (3) The mission of this Anointed One was Jesus’ ministry: to bring (or preach) good news, to heal and free (Isa. 61:1; cf. 42:7), to proclaim … favor and … vengeance (61:2), and to comfort (vv. 2–3). When Jesus read from this passage He stopped in the middle of the sentence, after the word “favor” (Luke 4:18–19). By doing this He was showing that His work would be divided into two advents.[2] In His First Advent He did the things mentioned in Isaiah 61:1–2a; in His Second Advent He will do the things in verses 2b–3. When He returns, He will bring judgment on unbelievers (Micah 5:15; Rev. 19:15–20); this will be the day of God’s “vengeance” (cf. Isa. 34:8; 35:4; 63:4). But the Messiah will also “comfort” Israel, for she will have undergone great persecution, the Great Tribulation, in the preceding years (cf. Dan. 7:21, 24–25; Rev. 12:13–17). (4) The Servant refers to God as His Master, the Lord (compare 50:4). (5) He brings a word of healing and liberation (compare vv. 1-3 with 42:7; 49:9; 50:4). (6) He proclaims the “year of the Lord” (compare v. 2 with 49:8). (7) The Servant is associated with an everlasting covenant (compare v. 8 with 42:6; 49:8).
Isaiah has several classical messianic prophecies[3] that feature regularly in most church lectionaries. Included prominently among these passages (though there are a few others that are less well known) are Isaiah 7:14; 9:1–7; 11:1–9; 42:1–4; 49:1–6; 52:13–53:12; 61:1–4. The figure in Isaiah 61:1–3 summarizes many of the characteristics of the earlier messianic passages and emphasizes again that He will come to proclaim deliverance for the oppressed, which was an integral component of justice as pictured in this book. He seems to gather up into Himself many of the tasks that had previously been identified separately, and in that way its use by Jesus at the start of His ministry (Lk 4:16–21) may be regarded as supremely appropriate. Luke has Jesus reading this very passage in the synagogue and declaring, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk 4:21).[4]
Regardless of the question about this being the fifth Servant Song, what is clear is that Christ identified the speaker with Himself in Luke 4:17-21 (cf. Lk 7:22). This passage may also refer to Isaiah, but if so, he is only a soft reflection of Christ.
In verse 1, the phrase “the Lord has anointed” signifies the Servant is more than a prophet, since only kings and high priests—with the exception of Elisha ( 1 Kgs 19:16)—were anointed (Is 45:1). “Poor” also means “humble,” which like “brokenhearted,” indicates those who confidently hope in God in spite of their present distress (Is 11:4; Ps 34:18; 51:17).
The phrase “proclaim liberty” is thought to allude to the official inauguration of the “Year of Release” or Jubilee (Lev 25:10).[5] This provides a link with the sacrificial teaching of 52:13–53:12. The first two lines of v. 2 are important. The term gōʾēl (“redeemer”; GK 1457) does not appear in this passage, but in the OT the Year of Jubilee—when slaves were set free and land was returned to its original owners—was closely linked with the legislation providing for the kinsman-redeemer (Lev 25); the same word was used of the avenger of blood (Num 35:12). Moreover, the Hebrew word translated “freedom” in v. 1 is derôr (GK 2002), a technical term for the jubilee release in the OT (cf. Lev 25:10, 13; 27:24; Jer 34:8–10; Eze 46:17). Here, then, God presents Himself both as the Savior and as the Judge
The captives are those in bondage to the wicked (Is 58:6) or to the wickedness in general—not to the exiles seen in 51:14. “Those who are bound” is translated as “prisoners” in Isaiah 49:9, where it refers in part to the exiles; here it means “captives.”[6]
“The year of the Lord’s favor” or the “favorable year of the LORD” corresponds to “the day of salvation” in Isaiah 49:8 and “the year of My redeemed” in Isaiah 63:4. When the Messiah comes, He will change believing Israelites’ sadness to joy, a truth Isaiah mentioned frequently.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] John A. Martin, “Isaiah,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, eds. John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1985), 1116.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Much has been written about these prophecies and is far too much to touch here. The depth at which these prophecies need to be handled is outside the realm of this devotional. For more information, see Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets by Mark Boda and Gordon McConville from InterVarsity Press.
[4] There are problems with accepting this at face value, since the reading not only follows the Septuagint by speaking of “recovery of sight to the blind” instead of “release to the captives,” but also incorporates a snippet of Isaiah 58:6 (“let the oppressed go free”). It is therefore highly unlikely that Jesus could have read from a Hebrew scroll that said what Luke reports. C. Kimble’s answer is that Luke has combined the reading with the sermon that would have followed, deducing that Jesus saw himself not only as the herald of salvation from Isaiah 61:1–2, but also as the agent who would bring it about from Isaiah 58:6 (Kimble, 110).
Alternatively, Luke may have deduced that Jesus must have read/preached from this passage at some point in his ministry, since he clearly alludes to it in his reply to John the Baptist. John wants to know whether Jesus is “the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (Lk 7:22). Jesus’ reply combines phrases from Isaiah 29:18 (“the blind receive their sight”), Isaiah 35:5–6 (“the lame walk … the deaf hear”), Isaiah 26:19 (“the dead are raised”) and Isaiah 61:1 (“the poor have good news brought to them”). Although some of these phrases could come from other texts (e.g., Ps 146:8), it does suggest that Jesus associated the messianic signs with the anointed prophet in Isaiah 61.
[5] Earl D. Radmacher, Ronald B. Allen, H. Wayne House, eds., Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Commentary (Nashville: Nelson, 1999), 870.
[6] Ibid.