Luke 1:78 Commentary and Bible Study

But Zacharias cannot speak of his son for long without returning to the one who is at the centre of God’s purposes, and to whom his son, John, will point. All the blessings of salvation and of the knowledge of salvation come to us in Christ, and he is given ‘through the tender mercy of our God.’ The Greek says literally, ‘through the bowels of mercy of our God’. In hebrew thought the bowels stand for the deepest feelings. The Lord has deep feelings for his people, feelings which move him to send his Son to visit us, and to die for us, knowing that he could not avoid this and still save us. Although theologians recognize the impassibility of God – the impossibility of any change in his feelings in response to what takes place in time within his creation, an impossibility linked to his unchangeableness – there is nevertheless something in God equivalent to our deepest feelings, and these do not allow him to hold back from providing all that his chosen people need.‘Whereby the dayspring on high hath visited us.’ The word translated ‘dayspring’ is the Greek for sunrising. It is used also to refer to the east where the sun rises. It is in the language of the KJV the springing into existence of the day, the first light that shines at the beginning of the day, technically called the aurora. Christ has come into the world to bring a new day on our fallen and hopeless world. His coming was promised long ago, but naturally the moment he actually comes is recognized as wonderful and deeply significant. Christ himself is the dawn, because in him and through what he will do, his people have hope. Just as the watchman waits eagerly for the dawn, so God’s people have been waiting for Christ’s incarnation. He is the dayspring from on high, for he comes from the highest heaven where he occupies the highest position of honour, where every agent worships him as the God of glory.He has visited us. That means he has stooped in order to come down to this miserable world. That is a voluntary undertaking which unavoidably involves him in suffering, for this is a world of suffering. He suffered by joining us in our common humanity. As the Baptist Catechism says, ‘In what did Christ's humiliation consist? Christ's humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, and in his enduring the penalty of the law and the wrath of God as the sinner’s substitute and surety; in the miseries of his life and in the death of the cross, in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time.’ It is however only a visit. It is not forever. He would never have come if he did not have hope of returning, and of achieving something immeasurably great by his coming. When he returns he returns with all his elect who would otherwise have no hope of ascending into God’s presence.‘He came ‘to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’ Mankind sits in darkness. This darkness is much more profound than simply the loss of light from the sun. The soul which has hope and treasure in heaven can continue to rejoice due to a light within, even though it is midnight in this world. Ask a man which is more important, the light of the body or the light of the soul, and if he knows anything he will tell you the latter. But man without Christ is without hope and without God in the world (Ephesians 2:12). All of us were before conversion in darkness. There was no signal from heaven, no encouragement to look up, nothing that could be called light that man could see or was capable of generating for himself. All sat in the shadow of death. That is an accurate way to describe man’s state. Death looms like a great rock in front of him obscuring the sun. It is mid-afternoon and it should be a time of fervent activity, but a gloom prevails because the light is blocked out, and the air is chilled and it is as if dusk is already approaching and prematurely hurrying the day to its close. Death is like that. How it steals from man’s peace to know that it will never go away, but continues to bide its time waiting for him. ‘Who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage’ (Hebrews 2:15). How much that thought deserves to be expanded on! It is impossible for us to fully shut out the prospect of death. It enters into every experience, and dampens every joy. You cannot cheat the soul. It knows that it will last forever. If you try to satisfy it with anything less, it is wounded, sickened. Things that are passing away do not satisfy it, and death’s approach marks everything as passing away. If we serve up to ourselves the greatest experiences on earth and the greatest pleasures with death mixed in, we promise ourselves that every experience will give way to what is unbearable. What comfort will the past then bring to us?But Christ has a solution and it is not a typical human solution, a partial, hyped, unconvincing solution. It is a solution which tackles the real problem, the real obstacle, head on. His remedy involved putting himself personally in the path of danger. It involved him standing for us against all our enemies, enemies which we had not a hope of defeating. It involved incomparable courage and resolution. He must take our place as those who have offended the Almighty God and are his eternal enemies who are due to be destroyed forever. He must absorb the infinite anger of God against sin. Only the Son of God could do this and not be destroyed. Only by this did he guide our feet into the way of peace. The way of peace could not be obtained any more easily.