Today’s Passage: Luke 3:21–22; 4:14–21
For two days now we have watched the Spirit of God at work, and today He comes to rest on one Man. Luke sets before us two scenes: Jesus praying at a river, and then, some time later, reading aloud in His hometown.
As you read, hold this: Even Jesus worked in the Spirit’s power.
Luke 3:21 (BSB)
²¹ When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as He was praying, heaven was opened,
All kinds of people were down at that river, and Jesus steps into the line right along with them. He had nothing to be sorry for, no sin to confess, and yet He went anyway. And notice what He was doing when heaven opened above Him: He was praying.
Luke 3:22 (BSB)
²² and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in a bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”
Look who is present in this one short verse. The Son is standing in the water, the Spirit comes down to rest on Him, and the Father speaks from heaven. All three are here together in a single moment.
Now read the Father’s words slowly. He does not say, “Today You become My Son.” He says, “You are My beloved Son.” Jesus already was, from all eternity. The voice from heaven announces what is true; it does not make it true.
Nothing was added to Jesus here that He had been missing. Last week we saw that He is fully God, and He was fully God as He stood in that river. What begins on this day is His public work.
Luke 4:14–15 (BSB)
¹⁴ Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and the news about Him spread throughout the surrounding region. ¹⁵ He taught in their synagogues and was glorified by everyone.
In the power of the Spirit. Luke writes it plainly, and he writes it about Jesus Himself. Do not hurry past that little phrase.
Context What a reading in Nazareth looked like
Nazareth was a small town, and everyone in that room had watched Jesus grow up among them. In those days Scripture was kept on scrolls, and there was a custom to the reading of it. Standing up to read was a way of saying, “These are God’s own words.” Sitting down again afterward was a way of saying, “Now I am about to teach you what they mean.”
Luke 4:16–17 (BSB)
¹⁶ Then Jesus came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. As was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath. And when He stood up to read, ¹⁷ the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He found the place where it was written:
He came to the synagogue every week, as was His custom. And notice that He found the place Himself; nobody chose it for Him.
Luke 4:18–19 (BSB)
¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, ¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Of all the words on all the scrolls He might have chosen, Jesus read these aloud about Himself, and the very first thing they say is that the Spirit of the Lord is on Him.
Look now at who Isaiah’s list is for: the poor, the prisoners, the blind, and all those who have been treated harshly by someone stronger than themselves. These are the ones the chriō, pronounced KHREE-oh. Strong's G5548, to anoint, pour oil on, set apart for office. To anoint someone was to pour oil on them, the way Israel marked out a king or a priest for his work. Our word Christ comes from this verb. It is not Jesus’ last name; it is a title, and it means the Anointed One, anointed with the Spirit of the Lord Himself. One comes to.
Luke 4:20–21 (BSB)
²⁰ Then He rolled up the scroll, returned it to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on Him, ²¹ and He began by saying, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down, and every eye in the room followed Him. Then He spoke one sentence, and it began with a single word: Today. Isaiah had written those words hundreds of years earlier, and now Jesus tells His own hometown that the long waiting is over.
Study notes The words Jesus was reading
Here is Isaiah’s own line, written centuries before that morning.
"The Spirit of the Lord GOD is on Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners," Isaiah 61:1 (BSB)
Before Isaiah names the good news, he names the Spirit, for God’s Anointed One was always going to be the Spirit-filled One. And Jesus told that room, plainly, that He was the very One Isaiah had written about.
Jesus is fully God, and nothing about that changed at the river. Yet Luke keeps telling us how the Son carried out His work here on earth: in the power of the Spirit, from the first day of it to the last.
Even Jesus worked in the Spirit’s power.
Personal Application
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What is one thing you have been trying to do for God lately in your own strength, as though the outcome rested on you alone?
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What might you attempt today if you truly believed God’s own Spirit was with you in it?
Today’s decision: Before the first hard thing you face today, stop and say out loud, “God’s Spirit is in me, so I am not doing this alone.”
Pray to Close
The central truth: Even Jesus worked in the Spirit’s power.
Praise: praise God that Jesus stepped down into the water beside ordinary people, having no need of it, for our sake.
Ask: ask God to make you willing to work in His strength today instead of leaning only on your own.
Give thanks: thank Him that the same power Jesus worked in is not kept far off from you.
Worship for Today
Jesus Messiah · Chris Tomlin
Today we learned that Christ means the Anointed One, the One on whom the Spirit rests. This song takes that very title and sings it straight back to Him. Sing it as praise.
Listen: