Luke 1:16 Commentary and Bible Study

This child is going to be God’s gift to a barren couple, but he is going to be far more. He is going to be a gracious gift from God to the entire nation. He is going to be used to turn many to the Lord. But are they not Israel? Are they not by definition the people of God? Sadly, for many this was only true outwardly. They were to ‘turn’, because although the nation was rightly called the people of God, in many cases their religion had not reached their hearts. Outward conformity to the statutes of God still requires turning if our walk with God is to be something real. The nation was a holding pen, a sheepfold, which had a fence round it to keep them together for a time. That fence consisted of God’s covenant made with the nation, and his protective laws and statutes which made them distinct from the other nations. However Israel was a mixed multitude and when the Good Shepherd came to enter the sheepfold by the door and call out his own sheep by name, it became clear that not all were his sheep, not all were among the elect. This distinguishing ministry began earlier with the preaching of John the Baptist. They were to be baptized one by one. All were called to be baptized, but only some responded, and even some who were baptised did not repent sincerely. ‘And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias.’ It was Malachi, the last prophet of the Old Testament, through whom God had said, ‘Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD’ (Malachi 4:5, also Malachi 3:1). This was commonly understood to mean that Elijah [or Elias] would appear before the coming of Christ (Matthew 17:10), and therefore when the disciples saw Moses and Elijah appear and speak to Christ at the transfiguration, they wondered whether they were seeing the fulfilment of Malachi’s prophecy. But Christ explained to them that this prophecy applied to John the Baptist who had already come, not to the supernatural appearance on the mount of transfiguration (Matthew 17:12-13). John denied being Elijah literally (John 1:21), but his ministry had the same spirit and was a powerful call to repentance. Elijah was a prophet who performed many miracles, and John the Baptist never performed any (John 10:41), but there was great power in the ministry of Elijah as he confronted the nation and the national leaders for their turning away from God and exhorted them to return with all their hearts. So too John was to be a fearless preacher who was ready to reprove those in power who behaved like hypocrites, and who were acting as barriers to prevent the people entering into the kingdom of heaven.Luke then partially quotes Malachi, but varies the second part of the passage. Malachi has, ‘And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse’ (Malachi 4:6), while Luke says, ‘To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord’, so there is some freedom in his use of the text. This either means that there will be a reconciliation between the patriarchs and these their distant descendants – though not implying a literal viewing of earth from heaven – in that both embrace the same doctrine and worship God with in agreement; or else it means that there will be a healing of the disruptions in society by which the generations are split apart. Luke must be understood to give the inspired interpretation of Malachi. ‘And the disobedient to the wisdom of the just’ implies more than just a reconciliation between children and their literal parents; it is a reconciliation of the children with godly teachers who show them the wisdom of God. All this is to make ready the people for Christ who was coming after him. The danger was that if the rebelliousness in the nation were not to some extent cured, the Lord would judge the nation immediately.